FEATURE:
The Digital Mixtape
The Northern Ireland Music Prize 2023: The Shortlist
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IN recent weeks…
IN THIS PHOTO: ROE’s (Roisin Donald) album, That's When The Panic Sets In, is among the shortlisted albums for this year’s Northern Ireland Music Prize
I have done a playlist around and covered national music prizes for Wales and Scotland. I don’t think we spend enough time investigating the strong and diverse music that comes out of Northern Ireland. As the shortlisted albums for the Northern Ireland Music Prize 2023 have been announced, I wanted to finish with a playlist of each. You can follow them on Twitter and Facebook. I am going to list the albums in a minute. First, here is some details about what the prestigious Northern Ireland Music Prize is and when it is happening:
“WHAT IS THE NI MUSIC PRIZE?
The NI Music Prize is an annual award aimed at recognising the great wealth of music from Northern Ireland. The prize includes a trophy and a monetary prize of £3000 for Album of The Year.
WHO ORGANISES THE NI MUSIC PRIZE?
It is organised by the Oh Yeah Music Centre in Belfast.
WHEN WILL IT TAKE PLACE?
The NI Music Prize 2023 will take place on Wednesday 15th November at the Ulster Hall in Belfast”
Given the richness of music coming from Northern Ireland, this year’s tantalising shortlist is hard to predict. Similar to Scotland and Wales, it is such a tough field. I guess that The Choice Music Prize - known for sponsorship reasons as the RTÉ Choice Music Prize – will announce their runners and rider soon enough. As the Northern Ireland Music Prize say, it has been a tough time narrowing the field down! Also, if you are local to Ulster Hall, you can book a ticket to go to the event:
“Wow! What a great year, that was possibly the toughest year to date, so much great music. So now that the counting and scoring has been completed we can reveal the shortlists for 2023. Thank you to our nominators for their time throughout the process and to the public and fans for your input so far.
Congratulations to all the acts that have made it through to this years shortlists and to all involved in the process regardless of lists, the level of music is something to be proud of. We look forward to celebrating the year of music with you on 15th November.
Voting opens Monday 9th Oct at 10am and closes on 4th November.
News on ATL Artist of The Year in association with BBC Introducing coming soon.
All winners will be announced at the awards on Wednesday 15th November”.
The twelve shortlisted albums are all remarkable and worthy. We will see who walks away with the prize in November. I have discovered some new gems via the shortlist. A few artists worth spotlighting. There are some new and rising artists sitting alongside the odd established and legendary group:
Arborist - An Endless Sequence of Dead Zeros
Clara Tracey – Black Forest (Public Vote Winner)
Conor Mallon – UNEARTHED
ferna – understudy
Jealous of The Birds – Hinterland
King Cedar - Everything More, & Other Stories
New Pagans - Making Circles of Our Own
No Oil Paintings - Rain Season
Phil Kieran - The Strand Cinema
ROE - That's When the Panic Sets In
Therapy? - Hard Cold Fire
Two Door Cinema Club - Keep on Smiling
To celebrate and spotlight a dozen diverse and interesting Northern Irish albums, below is a playlist of a song from each of them. Even though ceremonies like the BRITs and Mercury Prize are inclusive – the latter covers the U.K. and EIRE -, I think we sometimes focus too much on English artists and do not give as much exposure to artists from nations like Northern Ireland. With ceremonies like the Northern Ireland Music Prize, it is helping to put the country’s grand artists…
FIRMLY on the music map.