I Hate Owl City.

BIRD NAMES are a perfectly off-centre pop band from Chicago. Their songs are often ragged and experimental whilst remaining inventive and catchy. Characterised by a kaleidoscopic approach to songwriting, Bird Names mix together a world of ideas, instruments and musical styles into a sound full of personality. Sing-along waltzes can walk hand-in-hand with ad hoc scrambled guitar lines yet some semblance of balance is always held on to. Officially the band's fifth full-length album 'Sings The Browns' released on Upset The Rhythm is typical in its scope. Escaping the acute lo-fidelity of previous efforts this record takes you to places which you never see coming. It is a sky's the limit album scribbled in loose, intuitive musicianship, reinforced by an ethos of radical unconscious play.
www.myspace.com/birdnames

LEVENSHULME BICYCLE ORCHESTRA operate in an as yet undefined area between intuitive ritualised theatrical performance and shared collective improvising of songscapes using voice, bicycle, bass, synth and whatever other junk comes to hand. Unrelentingly experimental, their performances are visual and theatrical as much musical, embodying an almost Dadaist approach to spontaneous creativity which is child-like in its exuberance, playfulness and wandering sense of purpose. LBO have a new album released in January through Concrete Moniker and a few other releases courtesy of Lost Frog Records and Ikusiuus too.
www.levenshulmebicycleorchestra.com

PLEASE are Keebie (Cleckhuddersfax, Poltergroom), Michael and Rowland from London. Delectable offerings of riff and boogie in divine freakbeat equilibrium. Elements of the freakbeat sound include strong, direct drum beats, loud and frenzied guitar riffs, and extreme effects such as fuzztone, flanging, distortion and compression or phasing. Progressive Eastern scales tweaking through pomp rock anthems provide immediacy amongst short swathes of psychedelia.
www.myspace.com/pleees


In other news I also just made a mixtape for my awesome friends at 20 Jazz Funk Greats here:

http://www.20jazzfunkgreats.co.uk/wordpress/2010/01/13/fountains-of-rad/