The Battle of Land & Sea is a musical showcase for the songs and vocals of Sarah O'Shura, who can evoke a startling emotional power despite the gentleness of her instrument and the sparseness of her recordings. O'Shura was born and raised in a small Northern California town and studied piano and clarinet as a child, but she didn't dip her toes into popular music until she was a teenager. When O'Shura was 19, she moved to Los Angeles and began singing and playing guitar with a band called Rhodeislandmusic. After seven years of playing with Rhodeislandmusic, O'Shura became interested in writing and singing her own songs, and over the course of a weekend in 2006 she recorded a handful of her own tunes, with one her bandmates, Joshua Canny, sitting in on electric guitar. Wanting a name for her project, she chose the Battle of Land and Sea, a moniker she dreamed up when a former boyfriend was trying to come up with a new name for his own band. O'Shura and Canny self-released an EP of their material to immediate critical acclaim, and when the group was selected as a MySpace featured artist, they quickly developed a devoted international fan following. The Battle of Land and Sea signed with the Austin-based independent label Notenuf Records, and their self-titled full-length debut was released in January 2008. ~ Mark Deming