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On the
JB Stereo
Faith No More
Sol Invictus
Squarepusher
Damogen Furies
Lucky Stars
Don McGlashan
The Darkness
Last of Our Kind
Ryan Adams
Heartbreaker
Matthew E White
Fresh Blood
Tali
Wolves
Hot Chip
Why Make Sense?
The Rolling Stones
Sticky Fingers
Florence and the
Machine
How Big, How Blue, How
Beautiful
50 MAY 2015 JB Hi-Fi
visit THIS MONTH at MUSIC
Jakob win 2015Taite Music Prize.
ANOTHER GREAT TAITE
Florence +The Machine
Lorde and
Lawrence
Arabia
Delaney Davidson
Moana Maniapoto
A s well being our only music award that
is judged purely on artistic achievement,
the other great thing about the Taite
Music Prize is that the winners are almost always
impossible to predict.
Last year, for example, the judges honoured
Lorde’s mega-selling debut Pure Heroine, even
though the Taite is most commonly associated
with indie music. This year, with three of the 10
nominated acts coming from the folk/country
world, you could have been forgiven for thinking
that a roots artist would triumph. But no: the
2015 Taite went to sonic titans Jakob for their
excellent album instrumental album Sines.
They seemed more surprised than anybody
that they had won the award and that’s the way
it should be: even if you don’t always agree with
the eventual winner, at least you know it’s the
artistic merits of each album that matter, not how
many they have sold. Because the shortlisted
artists have been selected on a similar basis, all
10 are definitely worth investigating: from folky
faves like Delaney Davidson (who also played a
short but great opening set), Tami Neilson and
Aldous Harding, through to out-there hip hop
from @Peace. As inaugural winner and co-host
for the evening Lawrence Arabia noted, the
quality, depth and breadth of the nominees is so
much greater than when he first won the prize.
The ceremony itself is an informal affair; as
well as the aforementioned Lawrence Arabia,
there was an entertaining speech from Lorde
(she missed last year’s event) in which she paid
tribute to the nominated acts and shared a few
secrets from the road, and Moana Maniapoto
was the perfect choice to introduce the winner
of this year’s Independent Music Classic Album
prize to Herbs for Whats' Be Happen. So
congrats to all the winners – and the good news
is that 2015 is already shaping up to provide
another bumper crop of nominees next year.
Jakob