The Choice Music Prize shortlist for Irish Album of the Year 2009 was announced in Dublin this afternoon (Wednesday, January 13).
The shortlist is as follows:
And So I Watch You From Afar “And So I Watch You From Afar” (Small Town America)
Bell X1 “Blue Lights On The Runway” (BellyUp)
Codes “Trees Dream in Algebra” (EMI)
Adrian Crowley “Season of the Sparks” (Chemikal Underground)
Dark Room Notes “We Love You Dark Matter” (Gonzo)
The Duckworth Lewis Method “The Duckworth Lewis Method” (1969/Divine Comedy Records)
Julie Feeney “Pages” (Mittens)
Valerie Francis “Slow Dynamo” (VF)
Laura Izibor “Let The Truth Be Told” (Atlantic)
The Swell Season “Strict Joy” (Plateau)
The shortlist has been selected by a panel of 12 Irish music media professionals representing print, radio, online and TV. The full list of judges can be found on the Choice Music Prize website (http://www.choicemusicprize.com)
The overall Album of the Year will be selected by this judging panel at the Choice Music Prize Live Event at Vicar Street, Dublin on Wednesday March 3. The Event will be broadcast live in a special Paul McLoone Show on Today FM (www.todayfm.com) featuring music through the night and interviews with the shorlisted artists.
The winning act will receive €10,000, a prize fund which has been kindly provided by the Irish Music Rights Organisation (IMRO) and the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA).
The act will also receive a specially-commissioned award, courtesy of the Recorded Artists And Performers Ltd (RAAP).
Tickets for the Choice Music Prize live event will go on sale from all Ticketmaster outlets on Monday January 18, priced 27 euros including booking fee.
The event will feature performances from a number of the nominated acts and full information on the line-up will be announced later this month. The event will also feature video packages on all the acts by Irish production
company Old Hat (http://www.oldhat.ie)
ACTS & ALBUMS:
You can find out more about the act and hear music from their albums at thefollowing websites
And So I Watch You From Afar
http://www.myspace.com/andsoiwatchyoufromafar
Bell X1
http://www.bellx1.com
Codes
http://www.myspace.com/codesofficial
Adrian Crowley
http://www.myspace.com/adriancrowley
Dark Room Notes
http://www.darkroomnotes
The Duckworth Lewis Method
http://www.dlmethod.com
Julie Feeney
http://www.juliefeeney.com
Valerie Francis
http://www.myspace.com/valeriefrancis
Laura Izibor
http://www.lauraizibor.com
The Swell Season
http://www.theswellseason.com
ABOUT THE CHOICE MUSIC PRIZE:
The Choice Music Prize – Irish Album of the Year – was established to celebrate and acknowledge the work of Irish musicians.
Every single year, hundreds of albums are released by Irish artists in every genre under the sun.
The Choice Music Prize aims to simply highlight those albums which deserve some extra time in the spotlight and, ultimately, to select the album which best represents Irish musical releases from the previous year.
Instead of using sales or airplay as criteria, the Choice Music Prize will focus, simply and solely, on the music.
This is the Choice Music Prize’s fifth year in operation. Previous winners were Julie Feeney (“13 Songs” – Irish Album of the Year 2005), Divine Comedy (“Victory for the Comic Muse” – Irish Album of the Year 2006), Super
Extra Bonus Party (“Super Extra Bonus Party” – Irish Album of the Year 2007) and Jape (“Ritual” – Irish Album of the Year 2008).
The Choice Music Prize is co-ordinated by Dave Reid and Jim Carroll. Jim Carroll will be the judging panel’s non-voting chairman.
