About Charlie Bertsch

Fifteen years ago, the alternative music press was fixated on the idea of  “post-rock.” Whether that label was applied to artists that featured guitar, bass and drums – like the Chicago band Tortoise, whose excellent new album Beacons of Ancestorship … Read More

Advance word on Sonic Youth’s latest record The Eternal was mixed. Some listeners praised it for picking up where its predecessor Rather Ripped left off, disciplining the band’s tendency for extended improvisation in single-length, propulsive tracks that pay sufficient tribute … Read More

Considering the religious allusion in the title of Inbar Bakal’s debut album and the fact that this child of Yemenite and Iraqi parents was raised in a traditional househould that had little in common with the faux Southern Californian cultural … Read More

Long before the promotional campaign for the new Star Trek film started in earnest, commentators had already discerned an uncanny similarity between the personalities of Spock and Barack Obama. Calm in the face of anger, collected when others are scattered, … Read More

When a group that hasn’t achieved big mainstream success releases a compilation record, they’re usually trying to capitalize on a sense that their time has come. That makes the decision to lead off Carne Masada: Quite Possibly the Very Best … Read More

Discussing the 2008 film Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist for Nextbook, Stuart Klawans noted a discrepancy between the way the film was advertised and what it actually contains. “The promotional campaign for Nick & Norah mostly wants to sell you … Read More

Let’s Stay Together The receptions held at scholarly conferences tend to be short and not too sweet. They serve more as a staging ground for splinter groups that will head out on the town later than as celebrations in their … Read More

“L’chai-im!,” the boozy voices blare, “L’chai-im!” The surging mass is a sea of open mouths and raised arms. But the solidarity is overwhelmingly cheerful. Even those who came reluctantly or in a mood to judge have succumbed. No matter how … Read More