2014 longlist

The winner of this award will receive $1,000 from The Overcast + a slot in the 2015 Halifax Pop Explosion + a performance at the Closing Party  of the Eastlink East Coast Music Week 2015 + more!

The quality, diversity, and amount of music coming out of Newfoundland every year is so voluminous that many worthy albums won’t make a longlist, and not even because they didn’t deserve to. Many hours and much frustration go into creating a longlist and in the end, the albums on the longlist are just as much lucky as they are good, because almost any album on the longlist below could be swapped out for the latest albums by Pet Vet, Heather Nolan, Family Video, Neil Conway, Jigger, Last Soul Down, and Brianna Gosse. Not to mention heavy hitters in the local scene like The Once, Baytown, and Ian Foster, or undersung folks like Evan J.M. Smith and Three Trees. To be eligible, an album had to have been released between Oct.1 2013 and September 30, 2014. Likewise, albums needed to be 6 songs or 30 minutes long, so, great EPs from acts like Delusion Victims, Port of Call, Bridges, Gala, Waterfront Fire, and Make Mean Everything were disqualified for being too short and sweet.

The shortlist will be announced in our November print issue, which will be on stands October 29th. (If you live outside St. John’s, our print issues are now available, by article, in the sidebar of our website: click the issue’s cover image). We will announce the winner on the cover of the December print issue. But two nights before, on November 29th, the winning band will open for The Wooden Sky at The Rockhouse. We won’t know who won until they take the stage.

AM

Sample track, “Johnny” | FacebookBandcamp

body

Sample track, “Night Rainbows” | Facebook / Twitter / Bandcamp

TheT

Sample track, “Seeds of Joy” | Facebook / Twitter / Bandcamp

il

Sample track, “Something Familiar” | Bandcamp

connect

Sample track, “Against the Tide” | Facebook / Twitter / Bandcamp

rog5

Sample track, “Huckey Pump” | Facebook / Twitter / Bandcamp

boat 5

Sample Track, “Patron Saints” | Bandcamp

byrne5

Sample track, “Fair Ellen (Ft. Meg Warren)” | Twitter / Website

beer d-5

Sample track, “Harbourside Waterslide” | Facebook / Bandcamp

all kinds

Sample track, “When the Heart Resigns” | Facebook / Twitter / Website

mon5

Sample track, “The Flats” | Facebook / Twitter / Bandcamp

hea

Sample track, “Make a Friend” | Facebook / Twitter / Bandcamp

proise d-5

Sample track, “Lillies” | Bandcamp

roots-5

Sample track, “Don’t Listen to My Mama” | Facebook / Twitter / Bandcamp

Marshall5

Sample track, “Cool Kids” | Bandcamp

self

Sample Track, “Rattling on” | Bandcamp

selfsauce5

Sample track, “Dumb Piece of Meat” | Facebook / Bandcamp

Untitled-5

Sample track, “Circle Comes Undone” | Facebook / Twitter / Bandcamp / Website

fg5

Sample track, “The Right Idea”| Facebook / Twitter / Website

vir ed-5

Sample track, “It Was Never Enough” | Facebook / Bandcamp

j

Sample track, “Lay Down and Dry” | Facebook / Twitter / Bandcamp / Website

The following jury will now take this longlist down to a shortlist of 5 albums

Lukas Wall (The Overcast), Rajiv Thavanathan (The Overcast), Tom Power (CBC), Jamie Fitzpatrick (CBC), Zach Goudie (CBC), Alyson Samson (CBC), Angela Antle (CBC), Tony Ploughman (Fred’s Records), Tara Bradbury (The Telegram), Wendy Rose (The Herald), Tom Cochrane (The Corner Brooker), Bryan Power (Lawnya Vawnya), Andrea Vincent (Lawnya Vawnya), Krista Power (Mighty Pop), Mark Bragg (Musician), Katie Baggs (Musician), Craig Collins (avid show goer), Samm Joy (avid show goer), Jen Winsor (MusicNL), Bonnie Fedrau (MusicNL), Lorne Loder (Harbourage Music Festival), Mike Heffernan (Author of the forthcoming book Scumtribe: Ten Years that Changed Newfoundland Music, 1985-95), and the folks at Full Time Productions.

Grand jury of the shortlist will be: Emily Smart (Six Shooter Records), Dan Boeckner (Wolf Parade, Handsome Furs, Operators), Vish Khanna (Exclaim Magazine), Stuart Henderson (Exclaim Magazine),Matt Charelton (Pigeon Row).

The Borealis Music Prize recognizes uncommon talent, potential, or striking originality in any genre of music, with an aim to give the winning act some career-enhancing exposure. Borealis is a contraction of Aurora Borealis, a fitting term for an album that manages to shine brightly enough to stand out among the 150+ albums recorded each year in Newfoundland.