Biography
Pharmakon serves as the artistic vehicle for Margaret Chardiet, a performer based in New York who delves into noise, power electronics, and death industrial. Her approach fuses deliberate, grinding rhythms with harsh synthesizer eruptions and raw vocal outbursts, retaining elements of musical structure amid the aggression. The resulting aesthetic remains abrasive yet draws listeners inward through its repetitive, trance-inducing pulses. Chardiet has drawn uncommon visibility for an artist in this sphere, stemming from both her boundary-pushing live actions—often involving direct, physical engagement with spectators—and her refined recorded works, notably the 2024 release Maggot Mass.
Although earlier Pharmakon material appeared on CD-R and cassette formats, the project's initial full-length album, Abandon, emerged in 2013 via Sacred Bones. Plans for an initial European tour were interrupted when Chardiet required urgent hospitalization and surgery. Confined during recovery, she channeled reflections on bodily betrayal into her next Sacred Bones effort, Bestial Burden, issued in 2014. Shifting focus from corporeal themes, she examined mental processes on the 2017 album Contact, crafting it to replicate the hypnotic immersion of her concerts. Devour, her fourth album from 2019, captured performances directly in the studio as unbroken side-long takes. For the fifth album, Chardiet addressed cycles of decomposition and renewal connected to mortality, critiquing societal prioritization of financial gain above individual existence. This work incorporated more conventional song elements, such as recurring verses and choruses, within its textural noise framework, and arrived in October 2024.
Although earlier Pharmakon material appeared on CD-R and cassette formats, the project's initial full-length album, Abandon, emerged in 2013 via Sacred Bones. Plans for an initial European tour were interrupted when Chardiet required urgent hospitalization and surgery. Confined during recovery, she channeled reflections on bodily betrayal into her next Sacred Bones effort, Bestial Burden, issued in 2014. Shifting focus from corporeal themes, she examined mental processes on the 2017 album Contact, crafting it to replicate the hypnotic immersion of her concerts. Devour, her fourth album from 2019, captured performances directly in the studio as unbroken side-long takes. For the fifth album, Chardiet addressed cycles of decomposition and renewal connected to mortality, critiquing societal prioritization of financial gain above individual existence. This work incorporated more conventional song elements, such as recurring verses and choruses, within its textural noise framework, and arrived in October 2024.
Albums
Singles
