Madrugada
Anouk
Gomez
Morcheeba
Vertical Horizon
K's Choice

Madrugada and Gomez are really good, well I've only heard Madrugada's The Nightly Disease, but it's nice and dark, kind of mixing the Doors, Nick Cave and Morphine... Gomez is great, although what I've heard of their latest one sounded rather bad, except for a few songs...

now the others are something else entirely... Anouk basically has a good voice, but most of her songs are rather flat... Morcheeba is background music at most, Verical Horizon's songs I've heard were bland mainstream rock... I used to love K's Choice and they are probably not bad in the pop/rock world, well their first three-four cd's then, but it's not my cup of tea anymore...

of course that's all my opinion and it's perfectly possible that you disagree...

Sufjan Stevens - Seven Swans

u should try Madrugada's last album "The Deep End" and their first " Industrial Silence" they are way better than " The Nightly Disease"....and about Gomez u are right they didn't quite make it to rise up to the level of their first album which in my opinon was the best that's why i'm still hoping that they'll come to their senses soon enough....K's Choice ....again right....first albums good last ones bad...anyway the point is a agree with most of what u said but not the stuff about Anouk...i guess i can't make u change my mind so i won't even try but to me she's really good and noone can tell me different ...her track "Urban Solitude" it's so good i don't even have the words to describe it ...the lyrics, the sound, the vibe everything is perfect

Brazilian Girls sound really nice....not really alternative but still good....they are worth mentioning

Anouk/Anoushka would be my fav. choices for girl's names.

I couldn't think of anything earlier but I think Magnet (Even Johansen) is kind of the Norweigan Björk.

you could always check out Perry Blake's Anouschka (I Want to Come Home)... Blake is an English singersongwriter somewhere in the regions of Scott Walker, David Sylvian and Nick Drake... melancholic folk, with a hinge of bombast sometimes, not sure if that's your cup of tea though... oh and stay away of his last two albums... Still Life, Broken Statues (live) and the first selftitled one are good though...
favourite songs, next to the aforementioned one would be "Wise Man's Blues", "So Long", "Genevieve (The Pilot of Your Thighs)", "Friend, You've Been Whispering Again", "Driftwood", "Still Lives" and "This Time It's Goodbye", amongst others

anyway I checked out the track Urban Solitude by Anouk and I don't particualrly like her voice.

check out lapush, this band from st. louis i just heard on mtv's laguna beach (guilty pleasure, i swear). their album someplace closer to here just came out not so long ago, and they have a lot of smiths influences in them, but they really go in a lot of new directions from there. and plus they're touring right now! i think they're playing at the cmj midwest music summit in indianapolis soon.