The Mercury Music Prize nominations are out today.

I'm really happy that Bat for Lashes got some recognition, as I'm a big fan of her work. Her music reminds me of the Chromatics, which isn't exactly a bad thing at all. She'll also be appearing in Sheffield in October.

Bat for Lashes - Daniel

Friendly Fires, I'm not such a great fan of, although I certainly don't hate their stuff. I've heard a few of their songs remixed, which do sound a lot better than the originals. Their stuff has seemingly been around for ages (or maybe that's just me.)

Kasabian are probably the biggest name out of the list. And they have been around for ages. "West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum" is their third studio album after their quite disappointing 2nd album "Empire". I think the new album is a welcome return to their old stuff which is kinda good.





My vote is however torn between two artists:

The Invisible and La Roux.

The Invisible are probably the lesser of these two artists but without a doubt one of the biggest sounds out there. Its like a marvelous melange of electro, pop, funk, jazz and RnB. I am just in love with their stuff at the minute.

The Invisible - London Girl

Following on is the enigmatic La Roux, whom I first discovered on the Kitsune Maison volumes with their track 'Quicksand' remixed by the electro-magicians Autokratz. Listening to their stuff unremixed sounds a little snoozy Sunday waltz through the shores of elctropop-ville with a bottle of cognac and some valium. I thought that 'Quicksand' without Autokratz shifting the vocals and composition around was a little flat, but I have been reasonably impressed with her other stuff suck as the brilliant tune 'Bulletproof'. La Roux seems to be the bookies favourite at the moment, and in most years it tends to go to the more renowned artists (Elbow, Arctic Monkeys, Klaxons.) So potentially Kasabian could steal in here. However there is nothing to suggest an unlikely winner from Speech Debelle or Sweet Billy Pilgrim.

So there we go. My heart wants it to be The Invisible - purely just so they get some short-lived recognition (although, I would far want them to stay a bit esoteric) whereas La Roux is the more natural choice. I am however, completely biased towards my preference to electro music however.