Quick Before it Melts

Since they were announced earlier this summer, I’ve been able to review/re-visit six of the 10 albums nominated for this year’s Polaris Music Prize; if you take into account all the postings I’ve made over the last year, I’ve have mentioned 9 of the 10 artists. Not too shabby, if you ask me.

Kathleen Edwards has been the one nominee whose music has escaped me to date, so in order to satisfy my self-imposed goal of getting to all the nominees before Monday night’s gala award presentation, I wandered on over to Edwards’ “Down-tempo/Screamo/Tango” Myspace music page to sample some of the wares on her nominated album, Asking For Flowers. As you listen to the title track, it becomes evident where the Polaris judges were coming from choosing this one. Edwards sits somewhere between Sarah McLaughlin’s ethereal vocal emoting and Neil Young’s classic storytelling lyricism, embracing elements of blues, country, rock, folk and the best bits pop classicism to lay claim to a throne distinctly labeled “Canadiana“. She has established herself as a songwriter of stature, whose voice peppers her lyrics with passion and personality.

Myspace: Kathleen Edwards

This year’s Polaris judges will be holed up in a secret room somewhere in Toronto on Monday night deciding who the winner is going to be, like a jury sequestered to determine the fate of the accused. There’s no way to even give any odds on what the outcome will be, but leave it to QBiM to give a go at predicting what the battle is going to look like behind closed doors:

First round cuts would be The Weakerthans, Black Mountain, and Stars: great albums in their respective genres, but not huge artistic statements (and remember that’s coming from someone who’s a HUGE Stars fan). I think each band has done better work in the past. They won’t even make it into the stadium, let alone the Polaris wrestling ring.

Second round would see the ladies duke it out, and I’m betting Basia Bulat would take Kathleen Edwards out when the two albums come to blows.

Third round is where it gets a bit ugly, because someone is bound to realize that Two Hours Traffic is still in the game. The boys from Charlottetown are going to have to face some stiff competition from those arty Montreal boys, Plants And Animals, but I think in the end it’ll be a draw, as both bands are in this with debut albums. Attention will turn instead to Caribou and Shad who’ll have a go at each other in a cage round that will see the Dundas Kid, Dan Snaith, take out “London Lover” Shad.

For those not keeping score, that leaves us with Basia Bulat, Caribou, Plants And Animals, Two Hours Traffic, and Holy Fuck, who’ve spent the last three rounds standing in the corner enjoying the proceedings with a smug look on their face and confident they’ll be in this thing until the final two, if not the ultimate winner. Little do they know that the fourth round is going to see their fortunes turn, and if they expect their instrumental noise sculptures to make it any further they’ll have to turn guns ablazing and justify their artistic merit.

It will be an all out royal rumble worthy of a Francis Ford Coppola film. By the time the rain begins to fall and the orchestra swells to it’s crescendo, Two Hours Traffic, the “Ponyboy Curtis” of this year’s Polaris Prize, will still be standing (barely) but poor Basia “Johnny Cage” Bulat will have succumbed to her injuries. Holy “Dally Winston” Fuck will get their comeuppance when Plants And Animals draws their weapon and takes aim, leaving the Montreal band face-to-face with the only other combatant left standing: Caribou.

So in the end it’ll be a three way battle between Caribou, Two Hours Traffic, and Plants And Animals. As valiant an effort as they’ve made throughout the battle, Two Hours Traffic won’t have much fight left in them, so they’ll lick their wounds, head back to the island, and vow to fight again another year. Plants And Animals can almost taste victory by this point, feeling a kick of adrenalin as they realize they can win this two years in a row for their little-label-that-could, Secret City Records. But one should never underestimate the massive power of the Caribou.

It’ll be bloody. There will probably be a lot of fur flying, and the air will be filled with howls and cries. When the dust settles, the plants will have been trampled and the animals will have been scared into early hibernation; Dan “Caribou” Snaith’s Andorra will stand alone, victorious.

Or something like that.

MP3: Caribou “Melody Day”
Official: Caribou
Myspace: Caribou