HMV Sound Choice - 2010 Polaris Music Prize Short List Nominees

Every year a group of Canadian music journalists, broadcasters, bloggers and programmers gets together to pick the Canadian album with the highest artistic merit. The Polaris folks just announced the shortlist of nominees for this year's prize, one of whom will take home both bragging rights and $20,000 in prize money. The winner will be announced in September, 2010. Stay tuned! http://www.polarismusicprize.ca/home/

 

Sainthood
by Tegan And Sara

Tegan and Sara’s sixth studio album – Sainthood – addresses secular themes of devotion, delusion, and exemplary behavior in the pursuit of love and relationships. Inspired by emotional longing and the quiet actions we hope may be noticed by the objects of our affection, Sainthood is about obsession with romantic ideals. The themes of Sainthood are tied together by this simple title, borrowed, with great respect, from the lyrics of the Leonard Cohen song “Came So Far For Beauty:” I practiced all my sainthood / I gave to one and all / But the rumors of my virtue / They moved her not at all.

 

The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night
by The Besnard Lakes

The album is a dark bliss-out that folds the eerie guitar epics of the Montreal band’s breakthrough into a wall of affected drones and atmospherics, but with a toughened immediacy and grit that gives the form a much-needed shove over the cliffs, making for a haunting, provocative swan dive into the crushing tide. The standout track “Albatross” has all the swagger of a Stevie Nicks-led Fleetwood Mac classic or Roy Orbison re-imagined as a rollicking, snakeskin-booted Mazzy Star - dousing it all in gas and throwing the match as we hear its tale of Vancouver’s skid row and its inhabitants. http://www.outside-music.com/artist.php?id=30

 

Belmundo Regal
by Radio Radio

After an intense year of touring, Franco-Acadian hip-hop trio Radio Radio present their striking second album, Belmundo Regal, a real tour de force. Combining incredible lyrical skill with explosive electro-funk hip-hop grooves, this truly inimitable group expertly mixes humour, satire, and sincerity, bringing smiles to faces and intelligence to songs about luggage, penny loafers, Kenny G, and hippies. “Look out and listen up, Radio Radio is, quite simply, the best hip-hop act to come out of Canada in a while.” – The Montreal Gazette

 

Forgiveness Rock Record
by Broken Social Scene

Produced by John McEntire (Tortoise and The Sea And Cake), the album features BSS alumni: Leslie Feist, Amy Millan and Evan Cranley of Stars, Emily Haines and Jimmy Shaw of Metric and Sebastian Grainger to name a few. Uniquely, the song “Sentimental X’s” features Feist, Emily and Amy singing together for the first time on the same song. Forgiveness Rock Record also includes “Forced To Love”, “World Sick” and “All To All”.

 

Nice, Nice, Very Nice
by Dan Mangan

There is a raw rootsiness to Nice, Nice, Very Nice that touches on aspects of indie-pop. Mangan weaves unique lyrical phrases that simply and subtly unfurl complicated ideas. He delivers them with his signature, graveled vocals and understated humour. There are a number of toe-tappers amid his trademark lamentations and, though it’s mellow at times, what Mangan has to offer isn’t overly precious or delicate. He simply writes songs that evoke the wonder and the absurdity in what we do.

 

Heartland
by Owen Pallett

Heartland exists. The album is the product of nine months of work in four countries. Heartland is a fully orchestral record, designed to exist simultaneously as an album, a 45 minute piece of orchestral music and a set of songs for looped violin and voice. Owen Pallett explains: “The album is about the beginning, middle and end of a relationship. But it’s sung from the point of view of the object of my affection… Heartland was modeled upon the principles of electronic music. These songs, too, were designed to be as dense with polyphony as the Final Fantasy live shows have become.”

 

TSOL
by Shad

London, Ontario emcee Shad is back with TSOL, the follow up to 2007’s critically acclaimed The Old Prince. Easily one of Canada’s most anticipated releases of 2010, TSOL features the same intelligence, introspectiveness and razor with that solidified Shad amongst the best lyricists of this generation. Featuring the single, “Yaa I Get It”. Catch him on tour across Canada this fall with K’NAAN!

 

Darker Circles
by The Sadies

The Sadies bring their signature blend of country, psychedelic, rock and surf into rifle scope focus on Darker Circles, further underscoring their reputations as musicians’ musicians. With this record, The Sadies prove once again that denying them now is simply prolonging your conversion. So go on, pull up that screeching wooden chair that bows with your weight. Slide it up next to the turntable and drop the needle. The Sadies are a sure thing… tomorrow isn’t. http://www.outside-music.com/backstage/THESADIES