VOTD #2 5/11/2023

 Pharmakon: Devour (Sacred Bones)

Purchased through mail order via Bandcamp

I wasn't going to post again today, but this was dropped on my doorstep this afternoon. So here I am again.

I've chatted with Adam MacGregor (Brown Angel, Microwaves) about hard industrial and power electronics recordings. He's made the point that it needs to be or feel transgressive in some way. Like, something you're embarrassed to even own.

If you're truly going to explore the limits of "musical" creativity (and I do consider this to be music), then extreme subject matter and even presentation comes with the territory. It's possible of course to take things too far; as I've posted before, many of these sorts of groups flirt with fascist/Nazi imagery. In some cases I know it's not serious, and others I'm not so sure. In Adam's estimation, Whitehouse (one of the originators of power electronics) belongs in the comedy section, because you can't possibly take what they say seriously.

The first Pharmakon LP I bought was Contact, her (this is a one woman operation) previous LP. It's harrowing: pulsing, abrasive electronics and her voice, screaming and shrieking hellishly. I was impressed. I then bought her previous LP Bestial Burden, which has its moments but I found to be not nearly as intense. And I thought, well, maybe on great album is enough. 

Fast forward to last week, on Bandcamp Friday where certain fees are waved. In hunting around I found a listing for the most recent Pharmakon LP, and I decided I'd go for it. 

I think this one ups the ante from Contact, for two reasons. The first is that it was advertised as being live in the studio, making it the most immediate of her albums. The other is that I think it sounds just a bit grungier to me than that other albums, in an appropriate way. My criticism of Contact has been that it felt a little to clean, despite being as confrontational as it is. Listening to something like early Ramleh recordings for example, those tapes were just steeped in a lo-fi atmosphere that adds to the feeling of transgression. No matter how well digitally transferred those recordings are now, the analog comes through. Maybe my opinion will shift after more than one listening, but Devour sounds like it comes closer to that spirit.

By the way, when I opened the mailer, out fell two stickers that read, "You're the reason I feel dead". Far from being a deterrence, that just made me want to listen more. 

I bought the split black/white vinyl edition. I guess that's further away from that cassette dub to dub of original power electronics recordings, but I guess I'm a sucker for packaging like that.