By Liv Ingram
The 2014 long list for the Polaris Music Prize was announced on Thursday at the National Music Centre in Calgary as part of the Sled Island Music & Arts Festival. Sled Island performers Shooting Guns, Solids and Bry Webb were among the nominees.
Established in 2006, the Polaris Music Prize recognizes the best new Canadian album, based solely on artistic merit.
Polaris Founder and executive director Steve Jordan hosted the event, and on hand to announce the nominees were Mayor Naheed Nenshi, Mark Sasso of Elliott Brood, TSN sports announcer Dave Hodge and Dan Boeckner of The Operators.
Musical guest Basia Bulat performed songs from her Polaris nominated album Tall Tall Shadow on a 1939 Hammond Novacord, a rare instrument from the NMC collection considered to be the first polyphonic synth.
On July 15, Polaris will reduce the long list to a short list of 10 albums. The winner will be announced Sept. 22 at a gala in Toronto following performances by the Short List nominees.
Previous winners include Final Fantasy (2006), Patrick Watson (2007), Caribou (2008), Fucked Up (2009), Arcade Fire (2011) and Feist (2012). Montreal’s Godspeed You! Black Emperor won the $30,000 prize last year.
The long list nominees (in alphabetical order) are:
Arcade Fire – Reflektor
AroarA – In the Pines
Austra – Olympia
Philippe B – Ornithologie, la nuit
BADBADNOTGOOD – III
Basia Bulat – Tall Tall Shadow
Chromeo – White Women
Cousins – The Halls of Wickwire
Cowboy Junkies / Various – The Kennedy Suite
The Darcys – Warring
Dead Obies – Montréal $ud
Mac DeMarco – Salad Days
DIANA – Perpetual Surrender
Drake – Nothing Was the Same
Freedom Writers – NOW
Fresh Snow – I
Frog Eyes – Carey’s Cold Spring
Gorguts – Colored Sands
Tim Hecker – Virgins
Jimmy Hunt – Maladie d’amour
Jessy Lanza – Pull My Hair Back
Kalle Mattson – Someday, the Moon Will Be Gold
Moonface – Julia with Blue Jeans On
Mounties – Thrash Rock Legacy
Odonis Odonis – Hard Boiled Soft Boiled
Owen Pallett – In Conflict
Pink Mountaintops – Get Back
PUP – PUP
The Sadies – Internal Sounds
Shad – Flying Colours
Shooting Guns – Brotherhood of the Ram
Solids – Blame Confusion
Rae Spoon – My Prairie Home
The Strumbellas – We Still Move on Dance Floors
Tanya Tagaq – Animism
Thus Owls – Turning Rocks
Timber Timbre – Hot Dreams
Chad VanGaalen – Shrink Dust
Bry Webb – Free Will
Yamantaka // Sonic Titan – UZU