Former Blackheath student ESKA nominated for 2015 Mercury Prize

Florence + The Machine, Wolf Alice and Jamie xx are among this year’s nominees for the award, which recognises and celebrates music in the United Kingdom and highlights both new and established bands and artists.

Capping off a fantastic year for Florence Welch, in which she also headlined Glastonbury, her third album has nabbed her a Mercury Nomination for the first time since her 2009 debut Lungs.

Florence + The Machine’s third album, How Big, How Blue, How attractive, was the sixth album announced.

Justin Young of The Vaccines has criticised the Mercury Prize as only appealing to the “cafetiere drinking, Kentish Town-dwelling 6 Music listener”.

Gareth “Gaz” Coombes, better known as the lead vocalist and guitarist for English alternative rock band Supergrass, released his debut solo album- “Here Come the Bombs” in 2012. I am still in shock, it hasn’t sunk in yet.

Other nominees on the shortlist include Supergrass frontman Gaz Coombes’ solo LP Matador, Slaves’ Are You Satisfied, Zimbabwe-born singer Eska’s self-titled album, Ghostpoet’s Shedding Skin, Irish singer-songwriter Soak’s Before We Forgot How to Dream and garage rockers Wolf Alice’s My Love Is Cool. His latest album “Matador” released on 26 January 2015, reached number 18 on the UK Albums Chart, before getting nominated for this year’s Mercury Prize.

As we predicted this morning, Florence & The Machine and Jamie xx have been installed as the early favourites for the 2015 Mercury Prize after the shortlist was confirmed today (October 16th). “It looks like the 12 records my dad bought this year, and I’m not saying that in a nasty way because there are records on there that I love, but there are elements of it that feel slightly out of touch”. The awards, to be hosted by Lauren, will be held at the Radio Theatre at Broadcasting House in London on November 20.

Laverne said this year’s shortlist is “the flawless snapshot” of British music in 2015, adding: “It’s the ideal snapshot of where music is right now and where it might be heading in the future”. Soak – aka Bridie Monds-Watson, from Derry – said “it’s just insane, I just did not see that coming. What they have in common is the ambition and the craft, the ideas and the imagination to make great music!”