It may be cold and dark outside, but it’s all hazy summer sun and smokerings in the psychedelic pop-gaze of Scots three-piece North Atlantic Oscillation.

I think I’m pretty safe in saying that, unless Rugrats is your favourite piece of daily television, Zwounds! and their single “Predator 3″ are not meant for you.

For this week at least, Albany NY’s Aficionado are the best band you’ve never heard of. The Myth Of Real Life, told in… vaudeville post-hardcore prog? SRSLY.

One part metal, one part swing big-band, one part circus sideshow, Diablo Swing Orchestra are about as unique an act as I’ve heard this year so far.

French jazz-proggers We Insist! conjure the musical equivalent of David Cronenburg’s cinematic horror on their new album, The Babel Inside Was Terrible.

Bitterly angry anti-pop oddball Paul Hawkins returns with Thee Awkward Silences for more cynical po-mo theatre. “I’ve Had My Fun”… at least, I think I have.

Sometimes the album details say it all. So, ladies and gents: UFO Conspiracy Believer, by Benny Zen The Recording Artist featuring The Syphilis Madmen.

The UK’s oddest and angriest band, Future Of the Left, return to the fray with a tuneful more-of-the-same on Travels With Myself And Another.

Nathan “Wavves” Williams’ label-released debut, Wavvves, is noisy and poppy and a little bit mad… but is it less an album than a form of self-defence?

Youthful oddball composer Jonathan Pfeffer, slightly better known as Capillary Action, returns with So Embarrassing – a gloriously Zappa-esque shambles.