My Polaris Ballots 2016

So last night at midnight ET was the deadline for jurors to cast their ballots for the Polaris Prize Shortlist. I had meant to make a post about my initial ballot for the Longlist around the time the top 40 were announced, but I was away on holiday and pretty much avoiding the internet for a week. I actually tied my record for # of selections that made the Longlist with three out of five.



That's my Longlist ballot above, and only Heartbeat City and Aidan Knight were shut out. Kinda surprised by the Knight one, and much as I championed Thunder Amongst Us, I had little hope for it. I had a personal Longlist of 30 entries that I chose from in selecting my initial ballot and several of the albums I considered but didn't vote for the first go-round ended up on the Polaris Longlist so there was a clutch of albums to consider for my final two spots on the Shortlist ballot.

Here's the alphabetical list of what I considered:
01 Atlantis Jazz Ensemble - Oceanic Suite
02 Allison Au Quartet - Forest Grove
03 Bateau Noir - Bateau Noir
04 Beliefs - Leaper
05 Black Mountain - IV
06 Bob Moses - Days Gone By
07 Basia Bulat - Good Advice
08 Daniel Caesar - Pilrgim's Paradise
09 Tanika Charles - Soul Run
10 Sarah Davachi - Dominions
11 Dilly Dally - Sore
12 Dralms - Shook
13 Emilie & Ogden - 10,000
14 Grimes - Art Angels
15 Heartbeat City - Thunder Amongst Us
16 Carly Rae Jepsen - E.MO.TION
17 Kaytranada - 99.9
18 Aidan Knight - Each Other
19 LAL - Find Safety
20 Jessy Lanza - Oh No
21 Mas Ysa - Seraph
22 Tami Neilson - Dynamite
23 Safia Nolin - Limoilou
24 Laura Sauvage - Extraordinormal
25 Sorrey - Thick As Thieves
26 U.S. Girls - Half Free
27 Un Blonde - Good Will Come To You
28 Venetian Snares - Traditional Synthesizer Music
29 Vulgaire - Heureuse
30 White Lung - Paradise

*selections in italics made the Longlist, bolded entries were my votes that made the cut. 

After due consideration, the ballot below is what I officially entered.

Afous d'Afous - "Tarhanine Tegla"

Proving there's still so much to discover in this musical world, Portland based sahelsounds have been "exploring the cultural and musical phenomena of the Sahel region of West Africa" since 2009 and here they release a two-sider from Algerian group Afous d'Afous that is just pure fire.

Shadow J. Brown - "Un Deux Trois Cat Sank"

Discovery of the day on Bandcamp is this slippery tune from Shadow J. Brown (aka James J. Lepinsky) a Maryland-based artist who livens up his jazz tunes with some noodly, freak-folk type elements. This final track on the EP is a bit of a departure from the more straight-ahead material that precedes it, but it's certainly my favourite of the bunch.

Kutiman feat. Adam Scheflan - "Shine Again"

Up until listening to 6AM, the new album from longtime favourite Kutiman, I don't believe I'd ever heard Adam Scheflan's voice before. I'm hooked. For now I'll just have to listen to this song on repeat and hope that (a) this the right Soundcloud account for Adam Scheflan, and (b) eventually he posts some stuff.

Ocote Soul Sounds feat. Quantic & Chico Mann - "A Pesar La Vida b/w Not Yet"

Man Oh Man. "Not Yet" needs to be re-titled "Right Now." As in listen to this right now, and then again, and again...

Darkhouse Family - "Disco Duck"

YO. I was away on holiday last week but I'm back home and back at listening to new tunes. One of the emails awaiting my perusal on my return was one hipping me to "Disco Duck" which is way funkier than the one you're thinking of.

Ryley Walker - "The Halfwit In Me"

This feels more like a fall song (it's hot as hell in Winnipeg today) but if you're inside and have good air-conditioning, then mellow out to the track from the forthcoming (AUGUST!) album Golden Sings That Have Been Sung.

Helena Deland - "Baby"

Montreal. Apparently all the lovely, moody music I'm digging of late is coming out of La Belle Ville.

Shin Joong Hyun & Yup Juns - "I've got nothing to say"

Thanks to a Bandcamp browse, I just discovered Peruvian reissue rulers, REPSYCHLED RECORDS and ohmygod I want to buy everything in their catalog starting with this Korean self-titled psych-rock record from Shin Joong Hyn & Yup Juns, originally released in 1974.