Email Author Jason Ferguson

2008 Stories by Jason Ferguson

• Aterciopelados

  published December 4, 2008

  If the rock-inflected energy of Aterciopelados' 2006 album, Oye, was a response to the more electro-pop avenues the band had found itself... More >>

• Bombay Dub Orchestra

  published November 20, 2008

  The same problems that plagued Bombay Dub Orchestra's self-titled debut — released as a double-disc set to accommodate a bunch of... More >>

• Grails

  published November 6, 2008

  If there was ever auditory shorthand for "we're not fucking around," it would be starting your album with a half-minute of wrenching, agonizing... More >>

• Kasai Allstars

  published October 9, 2008

  The third installment in Crammed Discs' awesome series of "Congotronics" releases continues in the praiseworthy path of its predecessors,... More >>

• The Sword

  published September 25, 2008

  The buzz surrounding the release of Metallica's new album has centered on one — and only one — argument: Does Death Magnetic... More >>

• Various artists

  published August 14, 2008

  Continuing to prove that psychedelic rock was as omnipresent in the '60s as it is loosely defined today, the tenth volume in the QDK Media series... More >>

• David Bowie

  published July 31, 2008

  It's nearly laughable that this album is being marketed as "previously unreleased." Bowie's 1972 show at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium is... More >>

• G.B.H.

  published July 17, 2008

  It's ironic, of course, that consistency, longevity, and predictability have come to be the hallmarks of "true punk," but that's where we are... More >>

• Jacksonville Giants

  published July 10, 2008

  Sleep Well, the new album by Electric President, finds the Jacksonville duo of Ben Cooper and Alex Kane expanding on the... More >>

• Seun Kuti

  published June 26, 2008

  In an interview earlier this year with the Independent, Seun Kuti bluntly stated, "I'm crazy. My father was too." There's something... More >>

• Gogol Bordello

  published June 12, 2008

  There's a line in Gogol Bordello's 2002 song "Let's Get Radical" that goes something like: "You know mother, some things are actually... More >>

• Various artists

  published June 12, 2008

  British label Strut made a name for itself in the late '90s as a prime catalyst for the burgeoning revival of interest in Nigerian Afrobeat,... More >>

• Paint It Black

  published May 29, 2008

  Philly hardcore juggernaut Paint It Black is touring in support of its latest album, New Lexicon, and the chance to see these boys tear... More >>

• Be Your Own Pet

  published May 15, 2008

  Now that the kids in Be Your Own Pet aren't exactly kids anymore – they were still in high school when the explosive garage-rock band was... More >>

• The Science of Pop

  published May 15, 2008

  A few years ago, a psychology lecturer at a British college came up with the formula for the "perfect" mood-lifting pop song. Dr. Tomas... More >>

• Portishead

  published May 15, 2008

  The weepy white girls who relentlessly spun Portishead's two '90s studio albums may find little on Third that recalls the existential... More >>

• Pelican

  published April 24, 2008

  The dense, crushing expansiveness of Pelican's four-song debut EP was an incisive slice through heavy metal's bloated corpse, with its pinnacle... More >>

• Iron and Wine

  published April 10, 2008

  There's a metaphor somewhere in Sam Beam's hair. Something that equates his newly expansive locks with the richer, full-bodied sound he now... More >>

• Cheb i Sabbah

  published April 10, 2008

  Having taken a brief detour into North Africa on his 2005 album La Kahena, San Francisco globalist DJ Cheb i Sabbah returns to the South... More >>

• Caribou

  published April 3, 2008

  For a guy with a PhD in Math, Dan Snaith sure knows how to find the human warmth inside a machine. Over the course of four albums — his... More >>

• Dengue Fever

  published April 3, 2008

  Dengue Fever call themselves a "Cambodian pop band," but as astute observers have likely noticed, the only obviously Asian member of the... More >>

• Chica Libre

  published March 27, 2008

  Kicking off with a statement of intent — a cover of the Los Mirlos track, "Sonido Amazónico" that opened the groundbreaking 2007... More >>

• Defecating on Dando

  published March 20, 2008

  For some Lemonheads fans, their album It's A Shame About Ray was the end of the line. 1990s Lovey album... More >>

• Toumast

  published March 20, 2008

  There are few kinds of music more evocative of the place from which they come than that made by the Malian desert nomads known as the Touareg.... More >>

• Chick Corea and Gary Burton

  published March 13, 2008

  Skilled musicians Chick Corea and Gary Burton used to make challenging and experimental jazz albums that verged on the avant-garde. These... More >>