Have you heard about the Orange Unsigned Act competition? It’s a TV show that’s coming soon to Channel 4’s new 4music channel.

I’ll save the comparisons to X Factor for the reality TV blog. The reason I’m writing this is to tell you about the stack of unsigned talent you can find on the Unsigned Act website.

I’m currently having my eardrums rearranged by a punk band from London called The Display Team – click on the link, you get a band biography and a handful of brilliant songs, links to their proper website and everyfink. This band are particularly wonderful just for having worked the words “tits up” into their lyrics. I love the fact that they’re working trumpets and trombones into their act!

I’m only a little bit disappointed that the music player isn’t embeddable – I’d like to have shared some of the music with you all.

Random act or browse for yourself

If you visit the Acts page, you’ll get three random acts to explore. Refresh the page and you’ll get three new acts.

If that doesn’t get you hot, you can browse the acts by genre, or you can look for bands from your own hometown or you can even find acts by who their influences were. Pretty cool stuff.

Mixtapes

Another cool feature of the site is that while you browse around, you can create mixtapes of songs you like. You don’t even need to be signed in to do this, it’ll create a temporary mixtape for you.

Once you’re a member, you can sign in and your mixtape gets a page of its own. You can even browse other members’ mixtapes. Yes, I’m aware I’m dribbling just a little.

Anyway, I’ve spent a large part of this morning browsing around and listening to new music. It’s better than MySpace because there’s less design disasters, and the acts have been through a screening process, so it’s not nearly as hit and miss.

Check it out and tell me what you think.