Author: Charlie Bertsch
Charlie Bertsch is the co-director of Souciant.com. He teaches literature and humanities at the University of Arizona.

Rock Against Neoliberalism

By Charlie Bertsch
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Posted in Sounds Like Now

When a band has been around as long as Wire, starting off a new record with the line “It’s nothing new” feels like a dare. (More…)

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The Soundtrack is Berlin

By Charlie Bertsch
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Posted in Sounds Like Now

If you came to the new Oval album Scis without any prior knowledge of its creator, you would likely be struck by its innovative approach to electronic music-making. (More…)

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It's about being frozen. Suburban Paris, from the train.

Banlieue Noir

By Charlie Bertsch
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Posted in Sounds Like Now

How you respond to the work of Paris rap duo TripleGo may well depend on your knowledge of the context that produced them.  If you know it well, you will likely understand why they have received so much praise for the subdued, yet propulsive tracks on their two 2019 albums, MACHAKIL and Yeux Rouge (More…)

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Recontextualising their culture. Arab family, Neukölln.

This is What France Sounds Like

By Charlie Bertsch
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Posted in Sounds Like Now

Acid Arab’s second album Jdid is a blast. Like its 2016 predecessor Musique de France it draws equally from different electronic dance subgenres of the 1980s and 1990s and a wide range of vocal and instrumental music from North Africa and the Middle East. But this time, the portmanteau aspect of their tracks feels less random. (More…)

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Tito in Pyongyang

By Charlie Bertsch
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Posted in Sounds Like Now

When the news broke that the Slovenian band Laibach would be playing North Korea in 2015, long-time fans of their high-concept Kitschkunst smiled. What could be more Laibach than being the first Western rock group to play in the world’s most isolated country? (More…)

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Britain in Fragments

By Charlie Bertsch
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Posted in Sounds Like Now

Lee Gamble’s new almost-LP, Exhaust, is not easy to like. Every time one of its eight tracks seems to settle into a groove, it suddenly darts off in a different direction. The patterns that do repeat are usually too complicated to remember before the record has been played many times over. (More…)

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Council Estate of Mind

By Charlie Bertsch
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Posted in Sounds Like Now

Whenever a record receives as much attention as British rapper Slowthai’s debut LP Nothing Great About Britain has, it can be hard to hear. (More…)

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New angry Britain. IDLES at the Bedford Esquires, March 2017.

Nothing is New Anymore

By Charlie Bertsch
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Posted in Sounds Like Now

Listening to IDLES’ forthcoming live LP, A Beautiful Thing – not to mention the albums that preceded it,  Joy as an Act of Resistance (2018) and Brutalism (2017) – is by turns exhilarating and exhausting. (More…)

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Crate digging with Pinch.

Nostalgia for a Lost Future

By Charlie Bertsch
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Posted in Sounds Like Now

From its opening moments, the new Border Control EP from Bristol dubstep legend Pinch channels the time when that culturally and geographically eccentric city in the western United Kingdom felt like the centre of the universe. (More…)

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