Pharmakon, "Intent or Instinct"
Pharmakon is the avant garde noise project of Margaret Chardiet, one that is unflinchingly unpleasant. We go in for a fair bit of legitimately difficult music here at Five Songs, and Pharmakon is towards the top of the list. Chardiet was inspired to write it as a reaction to her own emergency surgery for a cyst, and it's supposed to represent her abandonment by her own body. And, well, it sounds like it. Made of electronic noise and her own howls, shrieks, and agonized breathing, it's disquieting in a way that many other extreme artists try for and don't quite reach.
MIKE, "STANDOUT"
A pickup during a Bandcamp year-end roundup, I know nothing about this artist, but you know me: I'm always down for underground rap.
Marnie Stern, "Absorb Those Numbers"
Goddamn, listen to that guitar. Craziness! This is basically a Lightning Bolt song, but with less incoherent howling. Awesome.
The Beatles, "Eleanor Rigby"
Well, we had been sticking with some pretty obscure shit. Anyway, "Eleanor Rigby" featured no Beatles actually playing any instruments, which I think was a first.
Logh, "String Theory"
Swedish slowcore, a bookend about as far away from Pharmakon as you can get.