Here in the UK, the nominations for the Barclaycard Mercury Prize have just been announced. This annual award has been going since 1992 and is rather coveted among many British artists due its unique remit – to recognise quality new albums regardless of any commercial success or media profile… “the music on the album is the only thing taken into account”.

What the nominations produce is a list of 12 albums released in the last year which should definitely be heard, but for many would otherwise lay undiscovered. In this respect the nomination is almost equally as important as scooping the award. The couple of months between nominations and award ceremony allows extended exposure for music fans to digest the highlighted albums, often producing significant sales spikes which needless to say are extremely important for the lesser known artists.

2010’s nominations see three EMI artist albums – Laura Marling, Corinne Bailey Rae, I Am Kloot (UK-distributed) – recognised as well as two Domino artist, the superlative Wild Beasts and the Irish folk sesnsation Villagers. The full list is below, this year I’ve got an unprecedented 7 of the albums which has produced a very smug appearance on my face. How many have you heard?

Laura Marling – I Speak Because I Can (buy) Corinne Bailey Rae – The Sea (buy) I Am Kloot – Sky At Night Wild Beasts – Two Dancers (buy) The xx – xx Biffy Clyro – Only Revolutions (buy) Dizzee Rascal – Tongue N’ Cheek Paul Weller – Wake Up The Nation Villagers – Becoming A Jackal (buy) Kit Downes Trio – Golden Foals – Total Life Forever (buy) Mumford & Sons – Sigh No More

Yesterday I went back in time.  Back to a beautiful time when people paid for music legally and artists played live at your local record store (cause it was still open)!  I was lucky enough to be teleported with one of the most futuristically nostalgic bands on the planet, Wild Beasts!  And boy, all the folks with me at Red Eye Records in Sydney were in for a treat!

Tom and Hayden had borrowed an acoustic guitar and an acoustic bass from some generous staff here at EMI (thanks dudes!) and set up in the corner of one of Sydney’s last surviving indie record stores.  Red Eye is a crate-diggers wet dream – the place is choc-a-block with the best music you can find, impeccably handpicked by the friendly staff.  There was a great turn out and Tom and Hayden played 5 songs with band mates Ben and Chris supportively looking on.

I wasn’t sure how their intricately layered songs were going to translate with just 2 guys, 2 guitars and their unique, warbly voices but hearing songs like ‘All The Kings Men’ and ‘Hooting & Howling’ stripped back only amplified how beautifully clever their songwriting really is.  I wondered if this was how  these songs were born.

As with their set at Laneway Festival in Sydney, my favourite song remained ‘The Devil’s Crayon’ which is accompanied by one of my fav videos of 2008:

After yesterday, I can highly recommend time travel, or at the very least a trip to Red Eye!

The warbly wonders of the UK, Wild Beasts are arriving in Sydney momentarily for the Laneway Festival – but not before announcing a super-exciting all-ages and free acoustic show show at Red Eye Records. Question is, will your boss let you off early from work to go see them? Fingers crossed…

The show will take place this Wednesday Feb 3 at 4pm at Red Eye Records, 66 King Street (between George and York Sts). Who’s up for loitering in the store afterwards flicking through countless 12-inches? God bless Red Eye…

Touring in the wake of everyone’s-favourite-indie-album-of-2009 Two Dancers, Wild Beasts are also appearing at Sydney’s Oxford Arts Factory and the East Brunswick Club in Melbourne. Tour dates here.

This is such a cute idea!!!

To celebrate Halloween, Domino artists are putting up spooky feature fiction tales they’ve written every day on The Quietus, you can keep an eye out for them here: http://thequietus.com/features

First cab off the rank is Tom Flemming from our forthcoming visitors with exquisite lungs and hooks, Wild Beasts! Note the atmospheric spooky cottage.

The moody new clip for the Wild Beasts (a la The Devil’s Crayon ) forthcoming single is in… Hooting and Howling is the first track from the Wild Beasts forthcoming album, Two Dancers.

You can also download a free remix of the song by Debukas ahead of release, using the widget below.

Hooting & Howling is out 20th July. Two Dancers is out 3rd August on CD, LP and download. The LP comes with a free coupon to download all album tracks as MP3s.