Archives for July 2009

A week on from the nominations announcement and the dust is finally beginning to settle over at Mercury Prize towers. For some like Florence & The Machine and La Roux the excitement of being shortlisted was little more than another highpoint among the flurry of noteable achievements that have encircled their debut releases.

Speech Debelle, on the other hand has made her way to the BBC Breakfast studio and the Sunday broadsheets to provide a little further background to the album that won her that elusive nomination, while Lisa Hannigan found time to pop in on the good people at Radio 4's Loose Ends to talk up her chances.

The Mercury Prize announcement has also taken many back to last autumn, when strong releases from Friendly Fires and Glasvegas first alerted the ears of NME, who now see the former as likely winners.

Not that our family of blogging prophets failed to see that coming. Collectively the thirteen sites who weighed in with their personal favourites predicted five of the final twelve selected by the Mercury Prize panel, with only the pleasant surprises of Led Bib and Sweet Billy Pilgrim passing under the blog radar.

If surprise is what you are after you could do worse than checking out our Mercury Prize website, where all but two of the nominees stopped by to share their reaction on being shortlisted. Also on offer are a host of exclusive BBC archive performances, including Kasabian on Glastonbury's Pyramid stage, Bat For Lashes' appearance on Later with Jools Holland and Friendly Fires getting their samba on at Radio 1's Big Weekend.

We'll have lots more to come in the run up to September 8's ceremony as we ponder which album deserves the big prize. Who do you think should take the glory?

For most of my life the kind of people who made Radio 4 programmes were all self-evidently much older than me. They were people of my parents' generation, people who smoked pipes.

Of course, this is no longer true. While they've been busy getting younger, I've been going in the opposite direction. And the evidence is all around me. On Today, for instance, they now routinely run items about musicians and entertainers that I liked when I was young. They're doing this because they liked the same artists when they were young. On Wednesday morning's show, for example, Nicola Stanbridge, the programme's arts correspondent, schlepped over to the top of Portobello Road to visit an idol of my teenage years, Mick Jones, and his newly-opened Rock 'n' Roll Public Library.

Jones was guitarist and joint frontman in The Clash (I don't need to tell you that, of course, since you too are probably old enough to have stood in a puddle of beer at the back of the Hammersmith Palais on a school night). And I was a huge fan of The Clash so I grabbed at this frankly quite flimsy excuse for a tube ride over to W11 to see the library for myself and to take some photographs.

I haven't quite got over the fact that I apparently just missed Mick Jones himself as I arrived (he must have been the man in the trilby on the stairs) but the library itself is a joyous pop-cultural mess, an eclectic horde of the kind of stuff you've probably got in your spare room - only more of it. Hundreds of pulp novels, thousands of pop and film magazines, an awesome collection of VHS movies, posters, musical instruments, trashy ornaments, gold discs and, of course, loads of Clash and BAD merchandise and backstage stuff. There's a little screening room showing Clash movies.

And it's called a library because you're allowed to take the stuff away - at least a digital copy of it. In a corner of the library there's a big scanner and you're encouraged to scan anything that's on display and take it home on a USB stick (although there's no obvious way to copy the music or the movies). It's a kind of open source museum. It's slapdash (did anyone think to ask the original rights owners if they'd mind having their stuff copied? Of course not) and a bit self-indulgent but there's something big-hearted about it too. It's generous and open and (obviously) quite punk. A huge treat, especially if you're old enough to be a Today producer.

The Today item:

Steve Bowbrick is the editor of the Radio 4 Blog.

This week's 6 Mix on BBC 6 Music, hosted by legendary Detroit techno DJ Derrick May, seems to have caused quite a stir. A cursory search around the web and Twitter shows that the his two-hour mix has been blogged, tweeted and seeded further than anyone might have expected. Given all this attention, it might surprise people to know that Derrick's show went out at 9pm on Saturday; a time when most dance music fans are out on the town getting ready for the long night ahead.

Legendary techno DJ Derrick May

The online popularity of this, and other recent 6 Mixes from Erol Alkan and Belgian DJ duo 2ManyDJs, is proof that analogue scheduling is increasingly irrelevant to specialist music consumers. In fact, I'd argue that the most important time for mix shows is actually Monday morning, when haggard ravers return to their desk jobs and immediately go to the iPlayer looking for uplifting music and minimal chatter to get them through the start of the week.

At 6 Music, we've recently started to market 6 Mix as predominantly a listen again proposition, approaching talent with large digital presence (including Alkan, Orbital, May and veteran techno head Andrew Weatherall) to helm the show on a regular basis. DJs like these have big and dedicated online followings on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, who they can easily direct straight to listen again - a much more effective strategy than running a trail in, say, a daytime show would be.

Dance music consumers in particular tend to be very digitally active and we've encouraged both talent and their fans to tweet, blog and spread the word about the show, hopefully drawing some of them back into the 6 Music community. Artists like Derrick May benefit because it gives them an opportunity to share their music with their fans outside of the clubs as well as being given credibility by the BBC brand; we benefit by attracting new listeners into our digital 'space' who will hopefully then enjoy content we generate.

It's not a conventional way of marketing a radio station or programme, but if 6 Music is a genuinely digital radio station why should it conform to the old analogue rules?

As well as Orbital and Weatherall, over the next couple of months the 6 Mix have shows from David Sylvian and The Orb as well as (fingers crossed) more from Derrick May.

You may have better things to do on a Saturday night, but hopefully we can make your Monday mornings that bit more pleasurable.

Rowan Collinson works for Somethin' Else and produces the 6 Mix for BBC 6 Music. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/rowanc

• 6 Mix homepage

Debbie Harry on Top of the Pops, 1978

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After George Lamb introduced Brooklyn synth-scenesters Au Revoir Simone onto his 6 Music show last Tuesday you may have heard him announce that we were now "visualised out of our minds".

The 6 Music Visualisation Console

"Visualising radio" is the clunky phrase the BBC has unleashed on the public to describe our live trial, that's also involved 5 Live, Radio 4 and Radio 1, that gives an opportunity for listeners to get a closer look into our radio shows and let you interact more with them while they are on air.

6 Music have been regularly filming Hub sessions for some time but the trial has enabled, via the 'visualisation console', for these to be shown live for the first time. The console also allows listeners to send in questions and comments on the sessions - and unlike text messages - it's free to participate.

Although Hub sessions tend to be broadcast live the addition of live video creates much more buzz in the studio that the guests, presenter and production team all then feed off. Bands are reacting really well to the stream of questions coming in from fans. On Tuesday Au Revoir Simone cheerfully talked about hanging out with David Lynch and the joys of Prince. When Spinnerette were visualised in the Hub a question about whether Brody Halle had scrawled her shopping list on her hand became a visual gag that was only able to feed into the broadcast and create a sense of 'now' between listeners, artist and presenter because the video was being streamed live.

The visualisation trial continues tomorrow on 6 Music with a Hub session from the Temper Trap. Let us know what you think.

So here we are, this year's Mercury Prize nominations are upon us, but who will make the final list? Over the past week the collective minds of music bloggers throughout the UK, Ireland and Canada (thanks Chromewaves) have been digging through the past twelve months of their collections in the hope of uncovering the gem of an album that had slipped our minds or passed under our collective noses.

We've had celebrations of shouty-ness, dubstep, female-fronted folk and lots and lots of Scots. But are we any closer to the truth? Even at this very moment Keep Hope Inside's Saam Das has weighed in, with the first post on his new Faded Glamour blog, to remind us of great albums by Fight Like Apes, Grammatics and Dan Black.

I've done my calculations, checked them again just to be sure and behold, I can now present you the Mercury Prize albums of the year 2009 (as chosen by music bloggers):

1. Bat For Lashes - Two Suns

Recommended by eight different websites overall, surely Natasha Khan must be on her way to another nomination.

2. The Horrors - Primary Colours

Topping the list of impressive second albums in 2009 with seven votes.

3. Florence And The Machine - Lungs

Fresh out of the box and eager to please. Camberwell's Florence Welch makes it on to shortlists by six of our bloggers.

4. Dananananaykroyd - Hey Everyone!

It would surprise some and delight many if the Scots make the Mercury Prize judges' list.

5. Doves - Kingdom Of Rust

7/2 favourites at the bookies and like Dananananaykroyd chosen by five of our blogs.

6. Micachu And The Shapes - Jewellery

More than a few of our writers couldn't resist the inventiveness of the Surrey-born songwriter.

7. Fanfarlo - Reservoir

Their inventive sales strategy and the sheer quality of the music led to four votes for this debut.

8. Friendly Fires - Friendly Fires

It may seem like an age ago but the quality of the tracks, not to mention the dancing, won the Fires' a quartet of new fans from our list.

9. Glasvegas - Glasvegas

Another self-titled debut, another autumn 2008 release but the Scot foursome never left the minds of their blogging fans.

10. Manic Street Preachers - Journal For Plague Lovers

Their "best album in many years" according to blogger Frank Yang.

Which leave us with two spots, which could be taken up by anyone from Late Of The Pier to The Mummers, Little Boots or The Phantom Band, either way we couldn't decide. Not that it will be any easier for the Mercury Prize judges.

We'll all find out how close our guesses were around 11.30am tomorrow. At which point we recommend you make your way to our shiny new Mercury Prize website, where we'll be updating you on all the events of the day with breaking news of the nominations, interviews, reviews and all you need to know about the twelve lucky artists.

Mercury Prize nominations are now less than a day away and the speculation on which twelve albums will make the shortlist gains pace. Yesterday's Independent offered a bluffers guide to the run down, which highlighted the likes of 7/1 shot La Roux, South London rapper Speech Debelle and Radio 2 favouriteGary Go for late nods.

Irish blogger Niall Byrne has also taken a late look of the runners and riders on his nialler9 website. Niall is another writer who pins his hopes on Blackpool songstress Little Boots, along with the likes of Friendly Fires, Fanfarlo, The Mummers and The Phantom Band.

Toddla T's Skanky Skanky crops up again following his spot on funfunfun's shortlist over the weekend, while blog support for the self-titled April debut from Blue Roses continues to grow.

Nialler9's home tip comes in a similar vein, as the Dublin writer looks to former Damien Rice collaborator Lisa Hannigan, and her solo debut Sea Sew to fill an Irish spot on the shortlist.

Over at Bleep43, writer Toby Frith has taken an alternative view of proceedings. The writer bemoans the lack of exposure given to dance music by the Mercury Prize panel over the years, and heralds a promising future from the likes of Zomby and Lukid, who follow in the footsteps of 2008 nominee Burial.

Bleep43's tips for the 2009 shortlist come from the "filmic lo-fi grain" of Hazyville from Darren Cunningham's Actress project, new hip hop venture Harmonic 313 from Jedi KnightMark Pritchard and Heartbreak's Italodisco return on Lies.

Read Niall's full article on Nialler9.com

Read Toby's full article on Bleep43.com

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Much like, fellow Mercury Prize blogger, Frank Yang, Londoner Tim Murray is a blogger come music photographer, as this picture of Mercury Prize nomination hopefuls Fanfarlo proves. His funfunfun blog has been running since February 2006 and was an early fan of the likes of Slow Club, Los Campesinos! and fellow Mercury Prize hopefuls Noah And The Whale.

He kicks off his personal Mercury Prize shortlist with the "best British debut of the year" from Glasgow's We Were Promised Jetpacks. June's These Four Walls was described as "tense, agitated and epic in places" by the writer.

Also making the list are Sheffield mathcore quintet Rolo Tomassi, with September's "bruising, challenging and aggressive" Hysterics, which Murray particularly hopes will get nominated if only to allow him to "watch Jools Holland's face as it melts from the awesome mayhem that would ensue" from the band's ceremony performance.

Other nods go to the "clever and spacious indie rock" of Sky Larkin's The Golden Spike and If You Leave It Alone from Wymeswold's The Wave Pictures.

Fresh faced female folk makes an appearance on the funfunfun list in the form of 18 year old Alessi's Ark and the "devastatingly beautiful" debut from Blue Roses' Laura Groves.

Finishing up the funfunfun list is Tim's "dance choice for this year's prize". Toddla T's Skanky Skanky is "full of dancehall enthusiasm, jungle energy and some body-bending beats". High praise indeed.

Read Tim's full article at funfunfun

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Mercury Prize Nominations - Muso's Guide

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Muso's Guide's Mitchell Stirling alerted us earlier this week to a fine list of Mercury Prize nomination suggestions from the recently relaunched music website, not to mention a few tips towards those who may unfortunately miss out.

Muso's Guide again highlights the much lauded exploits of the likes of Doves, Bat For Lashes and Florence And The Machine, however it is in their list of "others that could make it" that things really get interesting. Many previously unmentioned possibilities from both the mainstream and leftfield crop up including Lily Allen, whose April release It's Not Me, It's You gained praise in many quarters.

An album of strong tracks to back up chart-topping single Don't Upset The Rhythm could see Noisettes make the list, while the late in the day return from the Pet Shop Boys could see the Brit Awards Lifetime Achievement holders sneak through to join them.

Muso's Guide also points to strong albums from 21 year old Laura Groves, and her Blue Roses project, Fanfarlo's self-released Reservoir and novella and album combo Bob and Veronica Ride Again from electro-pop quintet Morton Valence.

Stirling also points the Mercury Prize judges' eyes towards the urban category, with Speech Therapy from recent BBC Introducing performerSpeech Debelle toping his list.

Read the full Muso's Guide article here

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Self-confessed bearded slacker Eddie runs the Another Form Of Relief blog. He found the temptation to create his shortlist of possible Mercury Prize nominees irresistible as he realised how good a year it had been for British music. Another Form Of Relief celebrates new and old music, including their Ed Is Dead section of sadly missed artists and one of the best collections of "great lost Weezer songs" on the web.

Kent based Eddie goes all Scottish for his rundown of potential nominees with four of his select seven coming from north of the border. Dananananaykroyd are tipped again with the "loud", "messy and a hell of a lot of fun" Hey Everyone! quoted as "one of the finest debut albums in years," while Aidan Moffat & The Best Ofs return to the shortlists, as the former Arab Strap frontman produces "an album more consistent than anything he and Middleton put out".

The previously overlooked Camera Obscura also make the grade. My Maudlin Career's "beautifully textured songs" have led Another Form Of Relief to claim "this is the album Camera Obscura were destined to make".

Completing the Scottish quartet is Belle & Sebastian founder Stuart Murdoch and his new God Help The Girl project that "unashamedly embraces the album format when everyone else seems to be fleeing from it."

Elsewhere in the article Eddie pinpoints the "stunning songwriting" of Emmy The Great as "the slightly left of centre singer-songwriter style that seems to have made the lists in previous years", and a voice in Thomas Tantrum's Megan Thomas, which floats between "gentle and slightly unhinged".

Honourable mentions go to It Hugs Back, Sky Larkin and Fanfarlo, but its to Wales and Los Campesinos!We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed that Another Form Of Relief travels to find an album that has "emotional depth and philosophy...while still continuing to sound like quite nothing else that's around at the moment."

Read Eddie's full article at Another Form Of Relief

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The good people at Clash Music have also had there thinking caps on in the run up to Tuesday's big announcement of the Mercury Prize's albums of the year. Mike Diver has gone on tour around Clash towers to tap the informed minds of their editorial team and come up with some interesting results.

Again the wave of support for indie electro garners weight as the "head spinning mix of percussively punchy tracks, part indie-rock and part salsa party" of Friendly Firesself-titled debut joins the cross-audience appeal of Metronomy's Nights Out and Fantasy Black Channel by Late Of The Pier in proving "that the youth of this country could craft remarkably individual records that stand completely separate of movements in both music and fashion".

Clash Music also call for the Mercury Prize panel to celebrate the "individuality, experimentation and creativity" of Micachu And The Shapes on Jewellery and the 80s embracing Golden Silvers, whose True Romance debut "swaggers to a perfectly pitched pop beat entirely of its own design".

Also making the shortlist is the "strong blend of soul and indie, mixed with unashamed flourishes of future funk" from London trio The Invisible, and the collision of punk, kraut, scorched soul and confrontational combat-rock from an album by The Horrors which "still impresses" dozens of plays on.

At which point the Clash Music shortlist gets a little more shouty. Clash find is difficult to think of a more fun British album released in 2009 than fight pop group Dananananaykroyd's Hey Everyone!, while in the "arresting listen" of Grey Britain, hardcore band Gallows have created an album "audacious of conceptual design, and predictably brutal of execution."

Read Clash Music's full article here

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Regular Drowned In Sound and This Is Fake DIY contributor David Renshaw has also weighed in with his views on this year's Mercury Prize nominations on his It's Getting Boring By The Sea blog.

It's Getting Boring By The Sea's Quarterly Reviews should provide the basis to any Mercury Prize conversation, while his new bands segment regularly provides an early look at some of the UK's freshest talents.

Friendly Fires' "intergalactic disco" again gets a recommendation in this shortlist, with the writer finding the trio's ability to "make songs about falling in love across the artificial smoke and strobing neon lights" a "devastating blend".

Renshaw also casts the spotlight on often overlooked indie quintet The Maccabees and May release Wall Of Arms which is "the sound of a band growing in confidence and defying all expectations in the process".

Other It's Getting Boring By The Sea favourites included the much tipped Florence & The Machine and her Lungs debut which "sounds so lost in its own passion that you lose all cynicism and find yourself looking for the nearest forest to go stage an impromptu party in."

Before that however, David has found time to highlight BBC Introducing tipped Sky Larkin and their impressive John Goodmanson produced Golden Spike, Glasgow fight poppers Dananananaykroyd and the "furious rant against the ills of society" that is Future Of The Left's Travel's With Myself and Another.

Read David's full article at It's Getting Boring By The Sea

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Next up on our list of online music connoisseurs is BlackPlastic's Adam Russell. Adam lists TV On The Radio, Pavement and Common high on his Last.FM most played chart and has just introduced us to this bundle of audio-visual joy.

The "Art-y but relatively approachable" Primary Colours from The Horrors is first up on BlackPlastic's Mercury Prize shortlist. Adam was one of many who were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the Southend band's second release and tips them for the win.

Joining The Horrors on BlackPlastic's list is the "creative whilst still being a firm Dad favourite" charms of Glasvegas' self-titled debut, and the "rowdy British version of Kings Of Leon" created by West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum authors Kasabian.

Solo troubadours also get a look in on the BlackPlastic list, including the "beautiful and haunting" James Yorkston on When The Haar Rolls In, and Jack Penate, who receives particular praise for an Everything Is New album that "drips in hot summer evenings" and provides Mr. Penate with "a genre of his own".

BlackPlastic is the first member of the blogging family to highlight the electro-pop exploits of British music over the past twelve months. Included in the shortlist is "the Streets for the late noughties" sound of Metronomy, and St. Albans' trio Friendly Fires, who are "really challenging what people consider rock music to be" with their September debut.

Which leads us to Adam's tip for the album that "SHOULD win, but probably wont". The BlackPlastic writer revels in the "noisy, unique, dark and mysterious" sound of Fantasy Black Channel by Castle Donington quartet Late Of The Pier.

Read Adam's full article at BlackPlastic

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Talk of this year's Mercury Prize nominees has made its way to Canada, where Toronto's Chromewaves were happy to have a look back over their favourite UK and Ireland releases of the past twelve months. Indie rock fan and bachelor in mechanical engineering Frank Yang named Chromewaves after a track by Oxford shoegazers Ride and takes a mean picture of Bat For Lashes, amongst others.

And it is again with Ms. Khan and her album Two Suns where we begin our rundown of nomination recommendations. Chromewaves thinks the Brighton singer's second album is "distinctive, accessible and artistically ambitious - and also just excellent".

Two of Britain's latest female talents also make the Chromewaves shortlist with Emmy The Great debut First Love being appropriately named in the case of Frank's musical taste and the experimental pop of Jewellery from classically trained Surrey girl Micachu and her Shapes stepping further into the "brilliant" category with every listen.

Other Chromewaves favourites include the "meticulously crafted piece of orchestral pop" that is Fanfarlo's Reservoir, and the first half of Patrick Wolf album duo The Bachelor and The Conqueror, which features guest appearances from Eliza Carthy and actress Tilda Swinton.

Read Frank Yang's full post on Chromewaves

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Third up on our look at what the online music community is writing about this year's Mercury Prize is To Die By Your Side's Coxon Le Wolf. Wolverhampton's Le Wolf has been blogging about music for four years, and counts last year's winnerElbow as one of his top albums of 2008.

Coxon points out the complexities in selecting one album over another but also highlights the Mercury Prize's particular skill of having "a positive effect on the career's of deserving, up and coming, left field bands." Nevertheless, the writer has added a further dimension to his piece by marking his nomination selections with a grade for how likely they are to make the judges' final twelve.

Toping this marking scheme are the Kate Bush compared exploits of Bat For Lashes' Two Suns and Florence & The Machine's Lungs, while the previously tipped Manic Street Preachers and The Horrors also score well with their critically acclaimed spring releases.

To Die By Your Side favourites which Coxon holds less hope for include solo returns from Morrissey, scoring 0 out of 10 with February's Years Of Refusal, and Jarvis Cocker's second album Further Complications, which scores only one better on the To Die By Your Side scale.

Le Wolf also points our gaze at the previously overlooked creations from Blur's Graham Coxon on The Spinning Top, impressive debut Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down from Twickenham's Noah And The Whale and How To Get To Heaven From Scotland from former Arab Strap man Aidan Moffat and his Best Ofs group.

Read Coxon Le Wolf's full article at To Die By Your Side

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Another blog that has been gazing into its Mercury Prize crystal ball is Music Snobbery. Music Snobbery is one-man live review machine, that has interviewed the likes of The Tings Tings, The Knife and Phoenix in the past, and counts Yo La Tengo, Arcade Fire and Blur amongst his favourite artists.

Music Snobbery has made a shortlist of eight which again includes Doves' Kingdom Of Rust and "musical siren" Bat For Lashes "emerging from the forest to make our lives better" with second album Two Suns.

Other mentions include touring buddies Glasvegas, whose self-titled debut "boils down to that sweeping, over-the-top, heart-on-your-sleeve rock sound that hits you like a sledgehammer on your soul", and West London's empowering White Lies, who "provide thunder to the mix-up part of your early adulthood where you wonder what happens when you die".

Music Snobbery also pits indie rock goddess PJ Harvey and her "foot-stomping" collaboration with John Parish against the fresh faced "other-worldly quality" of Florence & The Machine's Lungs and the deadline beating debut from barefooted soul starlet VV Brown.

Which leaves us with Music Snobbery's highlight of the year, which comes in the form of the "dreamland orchestra pop" provided by Brighton's The Mummers. April release Tale To Tell has a "wide-eyed wonder quality about possibilities of life that's filled of beautiful orchestrations and Raissa's soothing voice".

Read Music's Snobbery's full article here

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He's dead and gone and the world remains in shock. Not since the death of John Lennon has a pop star's death made so many headlines. The "greatest cross-over artist", the "King of Pop", star of the "best pop video ever" - the testaments to Michael Jackson's genius go on and on.



By way of homage the organisers of the MOBOs have put together a video in which British artists and DJs talk about his influence and the impact of his passing. Interviewees include Craig David, Beverley Knight, Jamelia, Chipmunk, Ras Kwame and Tim Westwood, providing a fitting epitaph to one of the most influential artists of all time.

The good people at The Line Of Best Fit were one of the first music websites to start thinking about this year's possible Mercury Prize nominees and have come up with a shortlist of their own favourites from the past twelve months.

The East Anglia based site offers interviews, reviews and a vibrant new music forum, with founders Richard Hughes and Richard Thane commanding a team of writers that is spread from Gothenburg to Colorado, via Stoke-on-Trent and Basingstoke.

Rich Hughes' article plucks out the impressive debut releases from the "child-like alternative universe" of hotly tipped 18 year old Alessi's Ark, the "soundtrack to the party that will end ALL parties" offered by Glasgow fight pop five piece Dananananaykroyd and joyfully "hard to pigeon hole" Phantom Band with their first long player Checkmate Savage.

But its not all about the new kids for The Line Of Best Fit. Rich remembers an early listen to Doves' Kingdom of Rust in the presence of the band and celebrates a return to the early career stylings of the Manic Street Preachers.

Folk also gets a look in on TLOBF's shortlist with Radio 2 Folk Award winning Lau finally channelling their live energy onto record and Brighton's The Leisure Society living up to their Ivor Novello nomination.

All said, Rich's top tip comes in the form of The Horrors' Primary Colours, which should get "the judges juices flowing" with their "amazingly atmospheric sound". While his hope for the top is the "30+ minutes of spite and aggression" delivered by a Future Of The Left that finally casts off the shadow of their past.

Read Rich's full article on The Line Of Best Fit.

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Mercury Prize 2009 - Place Your Bets Now

With little over a week to go before the nominations are announced for this year's Mercury Prize the music world has put festival fever aside for a few moments and begun to look back at the past twelve months of recording output from the fair shores of Britain and Ireland.

Since Elbow's triumph in September 2008 we've had welcome returns from the likes of Super Furry Animals and the Manic Street Preachers, hotly tipped chanteuses like Florence & The Machine and La Roux and moody rock from Scotland's Glasvegas and London's White Lies.

All of which has fuelled early discussion amongst the bookmakers as they make the first attempts to fathom what is on the minds of the judging panel. NME point out that Doves and Little Boots are the frontrunners, commanding early prices of 3-1 and 4-1 respectively. The Quietus on the other hand tip the 50-1 outside chances of Morrissey and the Manics.

Forward Russia's Whiskas has cast his net wider, recognising the leftfield possibilities of The Bug and wildcard chances of Fanfarlo and The Leisure Society, before narrowing it down to twelve of his own favourites that may or may not pop up on next Tuesday's list.

Over the next few days we'll be asking a few of our favourite music blogs and websites to do the same. Casting their minds back through Michael Jackson memories, SXSW buzz and end of the year best ofs, to share their views on the current state of the UK album and enlighten us on the great releases that may have passed under our radar.

Together we may be able to foretell this year's final twelve. Well, maybe not all of them.

Glastonbury 2009 is over.

The event we started planning in November last year rushed by like a dream, albeit one featuring bizarre looking giraffes and elephants. Yet the blisters and wonderful videos, radio, photos and copy testify that something quite amazing happened over that long weekend at Worthy Farm, Pilton.

Glastonbury is the World Cup Finals of music on the BBC. It's the biggest, most challenging and rewarding event we cover. Yet we limit the number of people we bring so tightly that the hours worked verge on unhealthy. There's even a term called 'Sunday head' in the BBC compound. The effects are comparable to a lack of oxygen to the brain. I lost the ability to remember numbers for more than two seconds: pure exhaustion.

So how do these performances get from the stages to the website?

It starts with highly skilled producers, directors, camera crews, sound engineers, editors and production crews familiarising themselves with each of the artists' material and shows. They then plan how these will be staged, filmed and delivered to base, via talented engineering and production managers.

Photo courtesy of Donald Begg

All industrial strength kit comes down to the farm a few days before the event. Once this is set up and various satellites are pointed at the sky, the production teams arrive each with one or many vital tasks; be it film unit manager, studio engineer, presenter or cameraperson. My interactive teams, and the rest of the TV and Radio operations, do a lot of testing and set up on the Thursday so they can hit the ground running on Friday. The aim is to 'fail fast', make sure you know something isn't working before you go on air or online.

Once the music starts on the stages, the sweet elixir of Glastonbury performances starts to flow down the BBC pipes to the good folks of Britain. Here's how. Footage in high definition video and lossless audio go into digital storage systems, where they get edited for TV shows, radio shows and red button. Approved edits are sent down the line to London for broadcast. We also contract a team to grab red button performance material and format it for the web. There's about a four-hour turnaround from the band coming off stage and the material getting online. If we do have delays, it's normally down to swearing needing to be edited out or technical issues with sound quality.

A major innovation for online this year was the 6 Music webcam. We'd tried something similar for Radio 1's Big Weekend in May, so tried to build on what we learned there. We had a number of cameras in the tiny 6 Music studios behind the Pyramid stage where the likes of Steve Lamacq, Lauren Laverne and Adam & Joe were broadcasting. These allowed people to see guests, understand visual references and catch the odd acoustic session.

Adam & Joe on 6 Music webcams kit

Added to this, we had a video camera overlooking the Pyramid stage and the Park area all weekend. This aimed to put the broadcasts in context as well as give people something interesting to view while tracks were played. Heavy traffic delays on Wednesday after some accidents and a power outage during Thursday night's thunderstorm set us a back a bit more than we would have liked. This meant we didn't get our Pyramid view and Park view webcams up until later on Friday.

I'm going to pre-empt a question I know will be asked about the webcams: why not show the performances live? Simply, the BBC's commitment to taste and decency (mainly in this case, the need to avoid swearing or to provide appropriate guidance where necessary), plus reluctance from some artists to have all their material shown live, would have made this a patchy offering. As it turned out, audiences inundated us with wonderful praise as the 6 Music presenters really got into the swing. Adam & Joe's portraits were especially amusing and Julie Cullen's dancing during songs brought viewers the spirit of Wigan Casino.

One of Sarah Barney's awesome photographs

Apart from the videos, we also have some superb photographers who create our photo galleries. We also put effort into twittering and blogging at the festival. These elements help to tell the story of the event and unearth the atmosphere on site. Meanwhile, our photo editors and web production teams are recognised as having the most gruelling jobs in the interactive cabin. Unlike most websites covering the event, we handcode our pages, using some in-house tools to short-cut gallery creation. We take this approach because few of the BBC's online production tools work well outside of our offices and it also gives us the flexibility to adapt to changing needs on the fly. Things are likely to improve next year with the BBC's new technical infrastructure and dynamic events work by our technology teams.

There's been quite a debate on the message boards and on comments on the Glastonbury website about the amount of material we showed at the weekend. Along with my colleagues in TV and Radio, we share passion for music: that's why we devote our careers to it. We would love to show more music from more stages on the Glastonbury website, but the technical limitations of achieving this and the artistic requirements of bands prevent us from doing so. However, I am extremely proud of what we all created this weekend: coverage of more performances than you will ever see in any other festival broadcast on this planet. I salute the amazing devotion of my colleagues and thank you all for experiencing the greatest show on earth with us.

• Relive Glastonbury at bbc.co.uk/glastonbury

Tim Clarke is the Senior Content Producer of BBC Online's major music event websites