Uniform + Pharmakon

FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | X | SPOTIFY

Through an industrialized mill of grating guitars, warped electronics, war-torn percussion, and demonically catchy vocalizations, Uniform have bulldozed a path to the forefront of underground music.

Born in 2013, Uniform’s debut LP Perfect World (2015) was released on 12XU in the States and ALTER abroad. Following its success they migrated to Sacred Bones. Wake in Fright (2017) was followed by The Long Walk (2018) which solidified their place as purveyors of industrial noise. After touring with the likes of Deafheaven and Boris, they joined forces with The Body for a pair of collaborative albums – Mental Wounds Not Healing (2018) and Everything That Dies Someday Comes Back (2019) – as well as Live at the End of the World (2020). Shame (2020) is a full of neck-snapping riffs, guttural distortion, percussive maelstrom, anguished howls, and spiteful screams towards oblivion. And in 2023 Uniform teamed up with chameleonic doom icons Boris for the collaborative full-length, Bright New Disease.

2024 sees the band unleash what is arguably the apex of their body of work. American Standard is a journey of visceral discomfort and brutal honesty channeled through a portrait of sickness and the thrilling transcendence it can bring. Presented alongside a two-drummer rhythmic onslaught and deceptively melodic songcraft, it is Uniform’s most ambitious album to date.

FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | SPOTIFY | BANDCAMP

Pharmakon is the solo project of Margaret Chardiet, an interdisciplinary sound artist born and based in New York City.

Pharmakon as a project exists and evolves in true protean form, developing alongside and within Margaret’s personal experience and auto-didactic philosophies. Her work as a whole is a forced self-possession, using electronic synthesis as a tool to transfer this self-possession physiologically and intra-spatially into the bodies of their audience.

Pharmakon’s music has a deep-seated possession to urge listeners to feel uncomfortable, confrontational, transcend beyond their physical bodies. Abandon is Margaret’s first full album, spearheading her industrial noise project. Bestial Burden is a harrowing collection of deeply personal industrial noise tracks, each one brimming with struggle and weighted with the intensity of Chardiet’s internal conflict during her recovery from a medical emergency. Contact is about the moments when our mind can come outside of and transcend our bodies. Devour explores new sonic territory, with denser electronics, groovier hooks, and moments of her most unhinged vocal deliveries.

FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | SPOTIFY | BANDCAMP

The split is as diverse as the musicians themselves. True Body’s sound dwells in the energetic spheres of Interpol, Editors and White Lies, with deep, heavenly, and resonant vocals evoking the best contemporary and old-school post-punk athems. Petal, the standout track from their triumvirate, is pure honey to the ears.

True Body, formed in 2015 in Richmond, VA, takes as much influence from hardcore as modern digital music, balancing pop sensibilities with a lust for experimentation. Their primary concern is energy, and the spirit of their shows often plays out as ecstatic, Dionysian affairs. They hold this aspect of catharsis dear, as it has been their saving grace allegorically and literally over the years.

Host or Publisher DC9 Nightclub