Maggot Mass is the first new piece of music by Pharmakon to burrow its way out into the world in five years. 2019’s Devour was 36 minutes of unrelenting power electronics and noise, but on this new record she produces songs that have been consumed and reconstituted by caustic noise, their structure only partly eaten away at. The result is some of Maragret Chardiet’s most immediate and accessible music, even if that is still highly corrosive.
Opening track ‘WITHER AND WARP’ emerges from a festering sludge, the sound of swarming flies and insectoid feeding interrupted by a metallic clang as rigid, rhythmic pounds begin. The groaning belly of an industrial machine pulsates under the bubbling skin, as Chardiet’s gritty voice bellows over it all. The song is itchy and seething, stewing in a thick layer of grot. Screeching swathes of noise tear through the track, spewing geysers of oil that ignite on impact. Chardiet’s voice shoots into animalistic shrieks, comparable most to black metal wails. It’s a cacophonous brew that establishes Maggot Mass as a pained, writhing entity ripe with decay but very much alive.
‘METHANAL DOLL’ carries these textures further, the echoing industrial drums signalling the onset of acrid synths. Chardiet’s voice wavers between desperate singing and rabid growls, not quite fully staying in either register long enough to be nailed down. Bitter rage is rife, with the lyrics “you will never return to the Earth again, you will burn down to ash” clear amongst the toxic dirge. Chardiet is consumed by this rage as the track continues its death march, rising to fever pitch before collapsing back in. The track is the death rattle of a planet smothered in plastic.
‘BUYER’S REMORSE’ is a biting response to the reality of late-stage capitalism and rampant consumerism. Chardiet sounds more embittered than anywhere previous on the record right from the off. Acidic drones lap at your feet as nail-on-chalkboard signals scratch away at your eardrums, gnawing their way into the deepest chasms of your skull. As everything falls away, those signals are all that’s left and it is torturous. Chardiet screams “Oceans of wealth feed rivers of shame… What’s the use in the consumers’ choice when it only leads to the buyer’s remorse?… Our debt is due in death, not in dollar.”
‘SPLENDID ISOLATION’ is a primitive assault; drums distorted and abrasive, a nauseating, rising bass tone – there’s just something deeply uncomfortable about it, like brushing your teeth with 60 grit sandpaper. It shambles forward like a mech being dragged into a peat bog. Chardiet’s voice gets more and more twisted, howling out the words “What did I say?” repeatedly. The track nails the tone of the record in that it feels like the modern industrial world being chewed up and spat out by the forces of nature.
‘OILED ANIMALS’ kicks down the door with unsettling industrial percussion – glass breaking, an inconsistent pounding rhythm – it puts you on edge. The sound of surfaces buckling and whining under pressure creak through the track, noise creeping up to digest everything it touches. As the final track, this feels like a culmination – the consumptive force coming to feast as Chardiet sings an ominous doomsday sermon over the unwavering synth undercurrent. In its final moments noise is the dominant force, oscillating and pulsing like a mound of insects as a distant voice sample plays. These sonic bugs fall away as the voice concludes the record, stating “I must take from the world in order to live.”
Maggot Mass is a bestial, brutal dissection of humanity’s need to consume and how that has mutated into the world-ending power of capitalism. It’s by no means a casual listen, but as a ritual in digesting these ideas and breaking them down to their core principles, it does a great job. It’s an interesting step away from noise and power electronics into more of an industrial territory whilst still retaining the ferocity and lawlessness of Pharmakon’s usual sonic toolbox. That being said, I can’t imagine myself returning to this record too often, but it’s the perfect soundtrack for being reduced to nihilism by industrial society’s unravelling.
Pharmakon: Maggot Mass – Out 4 October 2024 (Sacred Bones)
– METHANAL DOLL (Official Video) (youtube.com)
