Originally Posted by Trollheart

Seconded about Cave. Also Tom Waits, Matt Johnson (The The), Fish/Marillion and indeed many prog rock bands. In fact, if it's deep lyrical content you're looking for with a real slant away from boy/girl/boy songs, you really should look into progressive rock. Check the subforum. For instruments other than the usual, Waits is a good start as is Eno, Glass and others.

As Vanilla says, look around: there are many threads devoted to eclectic artistes here, and you should get a lot of ideas. Probably stay out of the pop section. Try also the journals: Janszoon's "25 albums you must hear before the moon crashes into the earth and we all die", Bob's "Guide to noise rock", "Geekoid's world of music" and "Urban's journal of stuff" are all good places to start. Oh, and seek out a guy called Jackhammer: you want eclectic, different, challenging? He's your man!

Welcome to the world of, er, today!