A Flock of Seagulls

Being the butt of so many jokes and the go-to picture for bad '80s hair-dos, one can easily forget A Flock Of Seagulls made some decent music.

Japan... the band

Imagine naming your band after a country in this Internet age... but nonetheless, David Sylvian, Mick Karn and Co. made pretty original sounding music. After starting as a very punky group, they quickly morphed into something which clearly owed more than a small debt to Roxy Music, but with Karn's fretless bass playing and often quirky rhythms, they became a far more unique entity.

Hugo Race + True Spirit/Fatalists

Hugo Race was in Nick Cave's Bad Seeds for 1/2 a minute in the early years. As he continued on a solo career, he initially mined the same territory as early Bad Seeds' records. His most recent stuff is actually how I envisioned Nick Cave would sound at this point in his career and, personally, I find Hugo Race's music much more satisfying.

Neko Case

Country, Alt Country, Indie Folk... whatever it is, Neko Case has a stellar voice. Much of her work eschews the usual verse-chorus-verse-chorus structure for more free-flowing melodies that often build quick and then flicker away.