My Polaris Prize Ballot - 2019 Round Two

Round two of the Polaris Prize voting (i.e. whittling down from the Long List to the Short List) closed last night at midnight CT and now I wait until the announcement event on July 16th to see if I did any better with this round than the 2/5 I went on Round One.

Honestly the best I've ever done was 3/5 and it wasn't until last year with Jeremy Dutcher claiming the prize that my unequivocal #1 actually took home the prize so I'm disappointed but not surprised to go 2/5 and see no Winnipeg / Manitoba entries make the Long List.

As I have always done, I move up the votes that make the cut to the top spots, and then fill in the rest of my ballot from among the overlap between my personal Long List and the official Polaris one.

I'd like to shout out Alexandra Streliski and TOBi as I did agonize over including both their records in my 5-spot.

Here's what I ended up submitting last night:

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.

Tanika Charles - "Two Steps"

Winnipeg. Please meet Toronto (formerly of Edmonton) soul singer Tanika Charles. If you haven't heard me play the titular track to her forthcoming LP Soul Run on TGIFR, here's a second chance to get hip to someone who is bound to be big. Charles has that throwback thing going on but this isn't a facsimile. She's the real deal and that voice of hers is incredible.

 

The fine folks at Jazz Winnipeg are bringing Charles to town for a special show at The Good Will so take a listen and mark your calendar for May 18th.