Charlie Bertsch / 27 Jul 2023
Epidemic Psychedelia
AKSU, Il Santo Bevitore, and The Seer, Self-Titled
The eponymous LP by experimental artists AKSU, Il Santo Bevitore, and The Seer testifies to the power of collaboration.(...)
Belgium
Henrietta Foster / 19 Jun 2023
Sex and the Gallery
Painted Love, Wedding Cake and Ugly Duchess
June is busting out all over, so love must be in the air. Or rather, it's a less romantic version - coupling, whether conscious or unconscious.(...)
Henrietta Foster / 04 May 2023
Art Against Racism
Three London Shows
Last week was the thirtieth anniversary of the death of Stephen Lawrence. People of my generation wince with pain when his name is mentioned.(...)
Natalie Sarkic-Todd / 27 Mar 2023
Restoring Stalin
The House on the Embankment
Seventy years after his death, the rehabilitation of Joseph Stalin was unexpected. Yet however you analyse it, when a government spends decades glorifying a genocidal dictator and only later admits their crimes, we shouldn’t be surprised by a comeback.(...)
Charlie Bertsch / 21 Dec 2022
Sonic Reporting
Everywhere But There, by Joel Schalit
Battleground editor Joel Schalit’s new album Everywhere But There forcefully demonstrates the need for a new kind of political reporting, one which presents the world as it actually is instead of distorting it in the pursuit of profit.(...)
Charlie Bertsch / 14 Dec 2022
The Sexism of Everyday Life
Jeanne Dielman, Directed by Chantal Akerman
When Sight and Sound’s once-a-decade poll about the greatest films of all time was published two weeks ago, people were shocked to see Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai de Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles at the top.(...)
Natalie Sarkic-Todd / 06 Oct 2022
Exhibiting Apartheid
The Human Zoo Show
It was an act of contrition. In June, the King of Belgium returned a tooth to the Congo.(...)
Charlie Bertsch / 29 Sep 2021
Grenfell Dub
Fire, by The Bug
Fire, the new album by The Bug, hits hard, even harder than its rather distant predecessors, London Zoo (2008) and Pressure (2003). But it also hits soft. (...)
Charlie Bertsch / 30 Jun 2021
The Art of Listening
This is What Europe Sounds Like, by Joel Schalit
This is What Europe Sounds Like makes for uneasy listening. Not because of strident guitars, disturbing lyrics, or aggressive atonality, but because it refuses to meet the expectation of music at all.(...)