San Francisco-born composer and trombonist Jacob Garchik has lived in New York since 1994. He has collaborated with many of the city's avant-garde musicians, including Anthony Braxton, James Tenney, and Frank London, and has also created dozens of arrangements and transcriptions for the Kronos Quartet.

Jens Lekman is a Swedish indie pop musician whose albums include When I Said I Wanted to Be Your Dog (2004), Night Falls Over Kortedala (2007), and I Know What Love Isn't (2012).

Philadelphia-based band Literature is Nathaniel Cardaci, Kevin Adickes, Erik Smith, and Seth Whaland. The group’s releases include their 7-inch Cincinnati (2010) and their debut LP Arab Spring (2012).

Toronto-based singer-songwriter Basia Bulat has toured across the U.S., Canada, Europe, the Yukon, and Australia with Andrew Bird, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and Bowerbirds, among others. Bulat's albums include Oh, My Darling (2007) and Heart of My Own (2010).

Musician, artist, and producer Richard Swift is based in Northern California. He is a member of The Shins, and has produced records for Damien Jurado, The Mynabirds, and Laetitia Sadier. His solo albums include The Novelist (2005), Dressed Up for the Letdown (2007), and The Atlantic Ocean (2009).

Jim Schoenecker has performed and recorded with Volcano Choir, Collections of Colonies of Bees, Bon Iver, Dartanjal and TORCH: The TC-11 Orchestra. He records and performs as a solo artist under his own name and also under the name Pressboard.

Pastimer began as the solo project of songwriter and multiinstrumentalist Andrew Frank, but has since grown to include drummer and keyboardist Sean Ryan. The two Brooklyn-based musicians released their debut EP Rotary in 2012.

Cakes Da Killa is the stage name of up-and-coming rapper Rashard Bradshaw, who was born and raised in Englewood, NJ, and who is currently a student at Montclair State University. His releases include the 2011 EP Cakes' Easy Bake Oven and his full-length debut, The Eulogy (2013).

Taliesin is the project of Cayman Johnson, an artist and electronic producer currently based in Chicago, IL.

Black Pus is the solo project of Brian Chippendale, who is also the vocalist and drummer for noise rock duo Lightning Bolt. Black Pus’s albums include Black Pus I (2005), Primordial Pus (2011) and All My Relations (2013). Chippendale, who is based in Providence, RI, is also a prolific comic book artist.

Composer Dag Gabrielsen is a professor of music literature at Hunter College. He has scored a number of films, including The Adulterer (2000) and Mysterious Skin (2004), and he created a “pocket opera‚” performed by the New York City Opera in 2011. Gabrielsen is also the artistic director of the performance art collaborative Five Words in a Line.

Dirty Beaches is the project of Alex Zhang Hungtai, a Taiwan-born Canadian musician and videographer based in Montreal. His first album, Badlands (2011) was long-listed for a Polaris Music Prize, and he released two LPs, Love Is the Devil and Drifters, in 2013.