Only two debut albums – including the ‘token’ jazz release – feature among this year’s list of nominations for the coveted UK and Irish music prize A raft of familiar names fill this year’s list of Mercury prize nominations, with only two debuts among the 12 shortlisted albums. In Limerence, the first full-length by the Scottish folk songwriter Jacob Alon, and Hamstrings and Hurricanes, the first by Welsh jazz musician Joe Webb, will compete with the likes of Pulp’s comeback album More, folk godfather Martin Carthy’s Transform Me Then Into a Fish and the UK’s biggest-selling new album of the year so far, People Watching by Sam Fender. The list is split 50/50 between male and female or mixed acts. The solo female artists on the list tend to the iconoclastic: Irish pop star CMAT’s acclaimed third album Euro-Country, Leeds jazz musician Emma-Jean Thackray’s Weirdo, FKA twigs’ Eusexua and PinkPantheress’s mixtape Fancy That. As for bands, as well as Pulp, the Irish band Fontaines DC (Romance) and London four-piece Wolf Alice (The Clearing) appear. Continue reading...

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