Indie band English Teacher win Mercury Prize

Indie set English Teacher person won the Mercury Prize for their debut medium This Could Be Texas.

The quartet, who formed portion studying astatine the Leeds Conservatoire successful 2020, are the archetypal enactment from extracurricular London to triumph the prize since Young Fathers successful 2014.

Judges said their medium stood retired "for its originality and character" and displayed "a caller attack to the accepted guitar set format".

On stage, pb vocalist Lily Fontaine thanked her mum, who created the artwork for the album.

But otherwise, the set were seemingly mislaid for words.

"We didn’t truly program this far," said Fontaine, arsenic her bandmates looked connected successful disbelief.

“What bash we bash now?”

The radical were 1 of 3 acts from Leeds connected the shortlist, alongside jungle creator Nia Archives and singer-songwriter Corinne Bailey Rae.

Fontaine said the set owed their vocation to the enactment they'd received from section venues similar the Hyde Park Book Club and the Brudenell Social Club, whose proprietor was thanked successful the band's acceptance speech.

"If you look backmost implicit euphony from this country, Yorkshire successful peculiar has thrown retired immoderate of our astir prolific songwriters," Fontaine said.

"There's existent enactment for musicians successful Leeds astatine the moment.

"Venues are consenting to instrumentality connected caller artists and I deliberation that's integral to the wellness of the scene."

The band's prizewinning medium is steeped successful Fontaine's upbringing successful Yorkshire, addressing societal deprivation and governmental mismanagement, alongside themes of identity, love, nonaccomplishment and celebrity.

Musically playful, it combines the singer's partially-spoken vocals with dreamy, Smiths-like guitar lines and analyzable polyrhythms, with the gorgeous The Best Tears Of Your Life gathering to a head-spinning partition of sound.

Judges praised its "winning lyrical premix of surrealism and societal observation," saying it had a "subtle mode of wearing its philharmonic innovations lightly."

The added: "This Could Be Texas reveals caller depths connected each perceive - the people of a aboriginal classic."

The Mercury Prize, fixed to the champion British oregon Irish medium of the year, comes with a currency prize of £25,000.

Aside from English Teacher, this year's nominees included popular prima Charli XCX with her club-centric, headline-grabbing Brat album; indie newcomers The Last Dinner Party for their debut Prelude To Ecstasy; Scottish creation enactment Barry Can't Swim; and East London rapper Ghetts.

Eight of the shortlisted albums were debuts, including the archetypal solo medium by Beth Gibbons, who won the prize 29 years agone arsenic portion of Portishead.

This year’s ceremonial was held astatine the world-famous Abbey Road Studios successful London and broadcast unrecorded connected BBC Four and Radio 6 Music.

The amusement typically takes the signifier of a unrecorded concert, featuring performances from each of the nominated acts, but it was scaled backmost aft the prize mislaid its sponsor, the taxi institution Freenow.

"Despite efforts to lucifer up with a suitable caller partner, successful what is intelligibly a pugnacious arts backing environment, we weren’t capable to unafraid 1 wrong the timeframe," said Dr Jo Twist, main enforcement of the BPI, which organises the award.

It is hoped the ceremonial volition instrumentality successful afloat adjacent year.

Artists taxable themselves for the prize, making it intolerable to cognize whether acts who failed to marque the shortlist were snubbed oregon simply declined to participate.

Some of the records that didn't marque the chopped this twelvemonth included Blur's comeback The Ballad Of Darren, The Pet Shop Boys' critically-acclaimed Nonetheless and PinkPantheress's trend-setting debut, Heaven Knows.

The afloat database of nominated albums:

• Barry Can’t Swim - When Will We Land?
• Berwyn - Who Am I?
• Beth Gibbons - Lives Outgrown
• Cat Burns - Early Twenties
• Charli XCX - Brat
• CMAT - Crazymad, For Me
• Corinne Bailey Rae - Black Rainbows
• Corto.Alto - Bad With Names
• English Teacher - This Could Be Texas
• Ghetts - On Purpose, With Purpose
• Nia Archives - Silence Is Loud
• The Last Dinner Party - Prelude To Ecstasy

Last year's Mercury Prize was won by Ezra Collective, with their medium Where I'm Meant To Be.

The quintet were the archetypal jazz enactment to triumph the prize since its inception successful 1992. The triumph propelled their medium backmost into the Top 40. In November, the set volition go the archetypal jazz enactment ever to header Wembley Arena.