The Midweek Mixtape has evolved into a happy routine of: 1) Highlight something ridiculous from the week’s music news; and then 2) Listen to new music to escape from exactly the same thing.

As the weeks slide by, I often find myself worrying that nothing dumb enough will happen to fill the slot, and then, out of the blue, a ludicrous statue of Michael Jackson will be erected outside of a football stadium or something, and all is well again. Drebin is celebrating by listening to some of the least choice cuts from Jacko’s Cato(logue).

MIXTAPE!

FIRST! Mouthful Of Snow sounds exactly like you’d imagine: frosty and characterised by unusual lifestyle choices. OK, maybe not exactly. But with 1000 MPH power-pop songs like The Scandal under their belts, they’re surely going to gain excitable fans, who may bring handfuls of snow to gigs in order to ceremoniously place it in their mouths. Well, you can dream.

SECOND! Whoa, Negative Pegasus have a rock-hard name. I’m willing to gamble that their equally hardcore fans call them the NegPegs. Their brand of hard psyche is brash and harsh, but softened by a pillow of warm fuzz, and it’s an exciting change from the norm, albeit a strangely stupefying one. Nice.

THIRD! The Other Dances don’t apologise for their cheerful, quaint and chirpy jangle-pop. Why should they? Songs like Abigail occupy the grey never-never-land between Outright Seriousness and Nudge-Nudge Irony, and it’s a pleasant place to bask.

LISTEN: myspace.com/theotherdances

FOURTH! Emmy’s Unicorn (ft. The Shaw Quartet) have managed to create a brand of ultra-slick orchestral pop, which I’ll freely admit sounds like the kind of criticism you’d level at Sting or Seal, so you’ll have to bear with me here. In reality, they have made heartfelt songs on a wildly grand scale, which is admirable in today’s laptop glitch-pop climate. Kudos.