Arcade Fire, Daniel Caesar and Gord Downie make the Polaris long list
TORONTO — Albums by Hamilton singer-songwriters Terra Lightfoot and Iskwe are among the longlisted albums for the Polaris Music Prize, along with R&B singer Daniel Caesar’s debut, the latest effort by Arcade Fire, and a posthumous work from Gord Downie.
The juried award for best Canadian album of the year was narrowed down to 40 contenders who could qualify for the short list revealed next month.
Caesar’s breakout collection of slow jams, “Freudian,” joins other albums that made an impact, including Downie’s “Introduce Yerself,” a series of love letters written by the Tragically Hip frontman to his friends shortly before he died of brain cancer.
Arcade Fire, which won the award in 2011, is nominated for “Everything Now,” the disco-rock social statement the Montreal band released last year.
Several indie darlings also made the long list, among them Toronto dream pop band Alvvays with “Antisocialites,” as well as Bahamas for the album “Earthtones” and Charlotte Day Wilson with “Stone Woman.”
The Polaris jury also selected a number of concept albums from Indigenous artists, including Iskwe, who was nominated earlier this year for Indigenous album of the year at the Junos.
Jeremy Dutcher’s “Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa” melds the operatic tenor’s voice with centuryold recordings of people speaking the Wolastoq language, while “The Average Savage” from hiphop duo Snotty Nose Rez Kids is a staunch rejection of racism and stereotypes levelled against residential communities.
The Polaris Music Prize is awarded to the artist or group that created the best Canadian album of the previous year — irrespective of genre or sales — as chosen by a large team of journalists, broadcasters and bloggers. The long list was selected from 225 albums that made the first ballots.
A short list of contenders will be revealed on July 17. The Polaris winner will be awarded $50,000 on Sept. 17 at a gala presentation held at Toronto’s Carlu, which will be webcast by CBC Music.