With just over seven weeks to go, the shortlists for the 2024 Northern Ireland Music Prize have been revealed.
A year on from Arborist scooping the main Album of the Year prize, it’s another strong, genre-spanning showing across the board for what is – give or take a few elements – essentially the North’s answer to the Choice/Mercury Prize.
As expected, the strongest shortlist of the lot is the Album of the Year Prize, which features some of the island’s very best releases of the last 12 months, including Exmagician’s Sit Tight, Last Immediate Images by Blue Whale (pictured), Blouse Club by Problem Patterns and David Holmes‘ Blind on a Galloping Horse.
Elsewhere, Chalk hope to retain the prize for Live Act of the Year, which will be fiercely contended with Problem Patterns, Kneecap and Huartan. Some repeat names crop up, and with good reason, in the Single and Video of the Year shortlists, among the former being Exmagician and Problem Patterns. Check out the shortlists in full below.
This year’s NI Music Prize returns to take over the Ulster Hall on Wednesday, 13th November, as part of Sound of Belfast 2024.
