Much like SXSW, the annual five-day CMJ Music Marathon brings together hundreds of international artists and industry types, with official and unofficial parties happening all over Brooklyn and Manhattan.

It’s only three days into this year’s marathon, but some potential “winners” are already surfacing: the ethereal, outsider pop of Claire Boucher, a.

Armed with a vocal dance and a cavalry of loops, drums, drones and beats, JULIA EASTERLIN is heading down to the Dirty Apple for CMJ with a full slate of Massachusetts pride. The recent Berklee College of Music graduate teamed up with Paul Kolderie for two tracks on the school's Under The Influence covers record, lending her solo spellbinding take on tracks by THE PIXIES and RADIOHEAD

I’m not packing clothes for this year’s CMJ Marathon in New York City. In fact, I’m not even bringing down a laptop. Instead of spending five straight days inhaling various poisons, feverishly blogging on the same nonsense that everyone else is covering, and ransacking my weathered eardrums with out-of-tune guitar shreds and swollen bass lines, I’m limiting my trip to one day and two nights, and seeing how much I can cram in.