Takka Takka is a foursome indie rock band from Brooklyn and Queens. Singer-guitarist-keyboardist Gabe Levine says their name comes from "writing songs about war, and it's a painting about war, with machine guns going, 'TAKKA TAKKA.'" Other band members are Conrad Doucette, Damion Jurrens, and JP Jones. They cite their influences as: the Kinks, Orange Juice (sometimes Orange Julius), Pavement, Lou Reed, Zombies, Johnny Cash, Echo and the Bunnymen, the Magnetic Fields, Brian Eno, REM, Bob Dylan, and OMD.

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Sea Of Bees is the creation of Sacramento resident vocalist/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Julie Ann Bee (Julie Baenziger).

One day Julie, or Jules to those closest to her, was singing in Tape Op Magazine publisher John Baccigaluppi's studio "The Hangar", to which John felt immediately compelled to introduce himself.
An EP (Bee Eee Pee) and LP later (both firsts), Jules seems ready to bring her music (the result of much collaboration and dedication) to the limelight.

Producer John Baccigaluppi knows exactly how to capture Bees' potentially tricky magic and charm, bottling up a voice that is, at once, affecting, haunting, and truly disarming with precise arrangements and a pristine mix. Every instrument is heard and felt, electric guitar stabs are never overused and don't overstay their welcome, and it is clear he understood the most important thing about recording this artist: it's not simply the vocals that are the show, but the emotion that drips from them.

Sea of Bees is the real deal, and Songs for the Ravens is easily one of the best records of the year.

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The Brooklyn-based orchestral pop band THE SILENT LEAGUE originated as the solo identity of singer Justin Russo in the late nineties. While a keyboardist with Mercury Rev in support of the critically acclaimed albums "Deserter's Songs" (V2) and "All Is Dream" (V2), Russo secretly stole each available moment in a busy tour schedule to write and record his own fragile and epic LP, "The Orchestra, Sadly, Has Refused".

The resulting debut record - hailed as "a masterful blend of sepia-toned chamber pop and sunny-sinister piano balladry" (Bang Magazine), "stellar"and "heavenly" by the Village Voice - features performances from, among others, Sam Fogarino (Interpol) and Sean 'Grasshopper' Mackowiack (Mercury Rev). Blending glockenspiels and trumpets, howling guitar drones and gentle piano, the live incarnation, a dense and boisterous chamber pop ensemble, is quickly becoming NYC's most whispered about 'conversion experience'.

The group skillfully melds '70s-era piano balladry and a sense of offbeat childlike vulnerability with the heavily arranged and darker elements of Russo's former band.

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