Hello and welcome to the 141,526th Mercury Music Prize liveblog that I’ve now covered for the Guardian, and what has to be around the 141,523rd time I’ve made that joke.
By now you should know what to expect. A load of British musicians are up for a £20,000 prize for the year’s “best” album, the winner of which will be revealed at the end of tonight. This year FKA Twigs and Kate Tempest are tipped as likely winners.
Before that, there will be live performances by the likes of Damon Albarn and Bombay Bicycle Club, the highlights of which I promise to relay to you on this very liveblog. I will then attempt to keep the blog going while a bunch of music industry people eat a three-course meal, a task which was tricky the first time I did it and now, as I approach the 141,526th time, feels like a feat of journalistic magnificence so spectacular it’s a wonder that I have not been promoted to editor of the Guardian, or at least some position where I don’t have to liveblog the Mercury Prize every year.
But I haven’t. And so, to get you in the swing of things, here’s this year’s nominees (and what the Guardian and Observer made of them) …
FKA Twigs - LP1
not many albums sound like LP1, a singular piece of work in an overcrowded market ... you leave it convinced that FKA Twigs is an artist possessed of a genuinely strong and unique vision, one that doesn’t need bolstering with an aura of mystique.
Kate Tempest - Everybody Down
Tempest shines, though, through her use of language, which illuminates the subject matter – from boardroom drug deals to vacuous parties where “everybody here has got a hyphenated second name” – to dazzling effect.
Royal Blood - Royal Blood
Peel back the early 00s rock and there are quavering vocals that add texture to their stodgy sound. It’s heavy and hefty enough to crown them kings of the commercial rock scene, but then, who is going to stand in their way?
Jungle - Jungle
It all runs very smoothly – perhaps too smoothly for some tastes – but listen past the sheen and the headphone goods are there.
Nick Mulvey - First Mind
Informed by the 28-year-old Mulvey’s studies in ethnomusicology and Cuban music, his album mixes traditional and experimental, acoustic and electronic to pull unexpected rabbits out of hats.
Polar Bear - In Each and Every One
Seb Rochford’s creative mix makes the album seem like an integrated, large-scale work, and the overall effect is eerily beautiful.
Young Fathers - Dead
Like Massive Attack 25 years ago, Young Fathers have quietly constructed a strange and intoxicating musical universe that feels entirely their own, while no one else was paying attention.
East India Youth - Total Strife Forever
William Doyle is at his most affecting when he’s vocal-free: songs such as Glitter Recession counterpoint their melodic beauty with a subtle, unsettling undertow.
Damon Albarn - Everyday Robots
Beautiful, but subtle, cloudy and elusive ... you come out of the other side not much the wiser about the man behind it. Never mind: the music is good enough that a lack of revelation doesn’t really seem to matter.
Bombay Bicycle Club - So Long, See You Tomorrow
So Long, See You Tomorrow raises mild expectations of total, unimaginable self-reinvention. Instead it sticks pleasingly, if a touch disappointingly, to the lithe, artful dance-rock of its predecessor.
Anna Calvi - One Breath
Still touching on the themes of lust, love and death, her new material amps up the theatricality of passion and sadness, and abandons the Ennio Morricone-aping of her 2011 release in favour of more contemporary experimentation.
GoGo Penguin - v2.0
Ok, there’s always one album we failed to review isn’t there? Apologies to the GoGo Penguin crew whose v2.0, I can report, is a charming, atmospheric collection of piano-led compositions, in the jazz style but also not unlike Massive Attack or bits of Radiohead. You can read our fact file on the band here.
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