Polaris Long-listers: Austra, Feel it Break & Destroyer's Kaputt

Earlier today, 40 long list nominees for the 2011 Polaris Music Prize were announced at the Drake Hotel. Though the contenders include a few albums from storied veterans (not just Arcade Fire but Neil Young), 19 of the discs were recorded by first-time nominees. It was a good year for women, too: by my rough count, fully half of the long-listed acts are female soloists or groups with XX chromosomes.

That makes up somewhat for the usual genre-related gripes. Nothing too loud, very little hip-hop. However, the jazz/improv/experimental continuum reappeared after last year’s shutout: 2011 nominees include Tim Hecker and Colin Stetson’s New History Warfare, Vol. 2, which may become the first avant-garde record to reach the final 10. And the Weeknd’s House of Balloons mixtape is probably the first R&B selection in Polaris history. I wish it was a better, less dirge-like one, but there are no Canadian equivalents of The-Dream or Trey Songz, Beyonce or Mariah. R. Kelly might not even make it across the border.

If I got to play dictator, the coming shortlist would look something like this:
Austra, Feel It Break
Braids, Native Speaker
Destroyer, Kaputt
Diamond Rings, Special Affections
Tim Hecker, Ravedeath, 1972
Land of Talk, Cloak & Cipher
The Luyas, Too Beautiful to Work
One Hundred Dollars, Songs of Man
Colin Stetson, New History Warfare, Vol. 2: Judges (purchased on my way home and listened to as I wrote this, but dictators get to be mercurial)
Timber Timbre, Creep On Creepin’ On

…but I’m not even on the jury, and it has a tendency to surprise anyway. The Arcade Fire, for example, will almost certainly be on that shortlist, yet the ultimate winner is determined by 11 music journalists debating in a locked room, and one or two of them could sway opinion in unlikely directions. There’s a heartening Henry Fonda earnestness to that. And this year the jurors have a lot of merit to argue about.