Weekly Music Roundup: Mercury Prize Shortlist & Jen Cloher

Week of July 31: This week, the Mercury Prize shortlist, and Mick Jagger’s political new song.

2017 Mercury Prize: The Shortlist

Britain’s Mercury Prize is a little bit like America’s Pulitzer Prize: the cash award is relatively small (£25,000 – which in post-Brexit UK is probably what, seven or eight bucks?) but the prestige is enormous. The Mercury Prize is also known for being unpredictable, with lots of surprise winners over the years and the occasional controversial snub of big pop stars (anyone see Adele on last year’s list?). Last week, the shortlist of nominees for this year’s prize was released, and it had, unsurprisingly, a few unexpected names. It also had Ed Sheeran, the middle-of-the-road pop star who doesn’t surprise anyone. There are two previous winners on the list, the xx (2010) and Alt-J (2012), as well as Stormzy, a star in the UK hip hop genre known as grime. He would have to be considered a favorite to win the award, but the fact that a grime artist (Skepta) won last year may play against him. Kate Tempest, the poet/rapper, is on the list and it would be great to see her win, though given her stature in the UK, that wouldn’t rank as a huge upset. Two other names on the list struck me, and either winning the prize would qualify as a stunning turn of events. The rapper Loyle Carner, who in an earlier roundup I called “the nicest guy in rap,” has been nominated and, typically, told the Guardian, “my mum’s happy and that means I’m happy.” Even happier to be nominated is Dinosaur, a quartet of musicians led by trumpeter (yes, trumpeter) Laura Jurd who play an interesting jazz-adjacent form of instrumental music. Both show that the judges for this year’s prize have their ears to the ground and are willing to cast a wide net. This year’s judges, by the way, included musicians Lianne La Havas, Marcus Mumford, and Jamie Cullum. 

Here is the full list.  The prize winner will be announced on September 14.  

Alt-J: Relaxer
Blossoms: Blossoms
Dinosaur: Together, As One
Ed Sheeran:  ÷ (Divide)
Glass Animals: How To Be A Human Being
J Hus: Common Sense
Kate Tempest: Let Them Eat Chaos
Loyle Carner: Yesterday’s Gone
Sampha: Process
Stormzy: Gang Signs & Prayer
The Big Moon: Love In The Fourth Dimension
The xx:  I See You

Mick Jagger Gets Political in “England Lost”

Speaking of Skepta, last year’s Mercury Prize winner, he contributes a verse to Mick Jagger’s new song “England Lost” – a clever piece of writing that makes its political point initially through a sports metaphor, and hinges on the important difference between “England lost” and “England’s lost.” But Jagger didn’t stop at writing and recording the song – he also released a video. Here, Skepta’s verse is excised but another special guest appears: the actor Luke Evans, rumored to be in the running to be the next James Bond. Evans stars in what is essentially a five-minute thriller, beautifully shot in black and white, and clearly alluding to old English films and TV series like The Prisoner. 

Jen Cloher’s Beautiful, Sad Take On The Australian Dream

Like many music fans, I fell hard for Australian singer/songwriter Courtney Barnett’s music when I first heard it.  In interviews and in her videos Barnett was keen to shine a light on the musical circles she traveled in Down Under.  That’s how I first heard of Jen Cloher, a gifted songwriter and Courtney’s spouse. Cloher was well-established on the Melbourne music scene when Barnett’s career took off, and her forthcoming album takes on such difficult topics as how to maintain a personal relationship when one partner is suddenly touring the globe (a song called “Forgot Myself”). The album will be self-titled, and its first two singles show a songwriter at the top of her game, especially the one released this week called “Regional Echo.” Just as Talking Heads’ “Once In A Lifetime” questioned the American Dream, Cloher’s song asks whether the Australian Dream has been co-opted by small thinking and small expectations.  But its sound is not barbed or angry; it’s poignant and lovely and quite evocative.  So is the video, which stars her bass player (and Barnett’s too) Bones Sloane. 

Jen Cloher opens for Courtney Barnett at The Beacon Theater on November 1.

Ben Frost Crosses A Dark Threshold

Ben Frost is originally from Australia as well, but he now lives about as far from his homeland as possible: Iceland.  Frost has been part of the Bedroom Community collective in Reykjavik, with noted producer Valgeir Sigurdsson, American composer Nico Muhly, and numerous others. And while the Arctic chill seems to infect a lot of the music made there - including Frost's chilling and genuinely scary album By The Throat - Frost has displayed a particular attraction for dark, noisy productions. His new EP Threshold of Faith just came out; it is the first release of music he recorded in the studio of Steve Albini, who made Nirvana's In Utero, The Pixies' Surfer Rosa, and so many other essential albums. Much of the EP is the sound of distortion, of overdriven amps and systems nearing collapse. Frost seems to be challenging our assumptions about where music ends and noise begins; in some tracks, like "Eurydice's Heel (Hades)," it is possible to cross the threshold into Frost's sound world and recognize the inherent musicality in what he does.