Diamond Rugs is a collaboration between John McCauley, Robbie Crowell, Ian Saint Pe, Steve Berlin, Hardy Morris and Bryan Dufresne. Not too dissimilar from the beginnings of Middle Brother, McCauley decided he wanted to make another record during his downtime in his new home base of Nashville, with producers Adam Landry and Justin Collins. While attending a Los Lobos show, he made his way backstage and met Steve Berlin. McCauley convinced Berlin to come to Nashville to play on the record. Over the course of the next month, he also managed to convince Saint Pe, Morris and his good friend from his hometown of Providence,RI Dufresne. McCauley also recruited Deer Tick keys/sax player Robbie Crowell to play bass on the album. What happened next was entirely unexpected; the musicians McCauley had recruited to play on his record ended up contributing their own songs to the album and a fully-formed band emerged, rather than a group of musicians playing on another artists record.

Toronto indie pop outfit the Elwins have already generated an impressive buzz, but it was all without having released a proper full-len gth record. That album-less career is about to end, though, as the group’s debut LP, And I Thank You, is heading our way on February 21.

Combining dark electronica with organic orchestration, the anticipated second album of The Irrepressibles, "Nude", is expansive and atmospheric in it's orchestration with powerful melodies and iconoclastic arrangements. On their 2010 debut album, "Mirror Mirror", the group carved a new frontier in pop with their influence seen on much of today's music scene. The Irrepressibles fuse classical orchestration, grunge rock, kitsch, exotica, electronica, sound art, jazz, samba, and folk into a heady and emotional style of music that is created instinctively, playfully and cathartically by J.R.McDermott.

COEM (short for Coin Operated Entertainment Machine), a 5-piece band from Hasselt Belgium that loves to show a never let down enthusiasm when it comes to stretching the whole idea of what pop(ular) music might and should be.

For Xavier Rudd, writing music and living his life are one and the same. “I’m literally just singing about the things that are going on around me,” he says of his sublime and soaring indie-folk. Environmental work, activism, veganism, spiritualism, surfing, family camping trips in the bush and dog walks on the beach; everything Rudd does, he pours into song. The result is a personal sound that strikes a universal note.