Yesterday, the nominations for Australian Independent Record Labels Association’s (AIR) awards were unveiled, with this year’s nominees including a stunning array of the country’s brightest emerging artists, alongside established and respected performers, acknowledging yet another extraordinary year for Independent music.
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Amongst the nominations was the seemingly inconspicious addition of Paul Kelly’s forthcoming LP ‘The Merri Soul Sessions’.
Except there’s just one problem. The album isn’t out yet, and yet somehow it has been nominated as one for “Best Independent Blues and Roots Album.
The album made the shortlist for Best Blues and Roots Album alongside Dan Sultan’s ‘Blackbird’, John Butler Trio’s ‘Flesh & Blood’, Little Bastard’s ‘Little Bastard’ and Mia Dyson’s ‘Idyllwild’.
Now, according to Noise11, the record has been withdrawn from the nomination and won’t be replaced. Sure enough, any mention of Paul Kelly’s forthcoming record has now disappeared from the AIR website, although they’re yet to make a statement about it.
Calls to AIR’s head office have remained unanswered today, probably compounded that a fair amount of the Aussie music industry is currently en route for their annual migration to music industry conference BIGSOUND in Brisbane.
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Reportedly, AIR have officially withdrawn The Merri Soul Sessions from the 2014 Blues and Roots Award category and will not be replacing it with another album.
Still, it does beg the question: How did an unreleased album that nobody has heard get nominated for one of the most prestigious awards in Australian indie music?
The nominations for each category of the AIR Awards are chosen by a pool of judges from community radio, ABC, commercial radio, newspapers, magazines, online press, street press, blogs, industry, AIR’s Member labels, artists and the broader music industry.
A look at the shortlist for voting for nominations shows Paul Kelly’s independent project alongside 26 other records. So the inclusion in the final nominations is unlikely to be a clerical error.
More likely, the album was included by mistake in the shortlist, and the music industry peers who vote annually for the awards blindly voted for Paul Kelly because he’s Paul Kelly despite never hearing the actual record.
Which is kind of embarrassing. Don’t get us wrong, we love a bit of Paul Kelly as much as the next person, but we prefer the music we’ve actually heard.
In reality, the only music we’ve heard from the project are two tracks – ‘What You Want’ featuring Vika Bull and ‘Keep Coming Back For Me’ featuring Clairy Browne – which have been released as a 7 inch vinyl single.
The next single from the album, featuring Kira Pira and Paul singing ‘Thank You’, will be available at the end of this month. The whole album will be released in February, 2015.
If you’d like to be part of the journey to the album’s release, you can jump on Paul Kelly’s Pledgemusic campaign. And keep an eye out for Kelly’s nomination next year.
This years’ Awards ceremony is taking place at the heritage-listed North Melbourne Meat Market on Wednesday 8th October, moving away from Kensington’s Revolt warehouse where it has resided the last three years.
Performing at the ceremony are nominated acts Sheppard, Remi, DMA’s, SAFIA and Meg Mac.
