The Mercury Prize is an annual award given to the "best album" released in the U.K. or Ireland. It has less to do with commercial success or popularity; instead, it's decided by a panel of musicians, music journalists, producers, broadcasters and other industry folks.
Past winners have included Michael Kiwanuka, PJ Harvey and Arctic Monkeys. This year, there were some big names on the short list, but the Mercury Prize went to a relatively little known band called English Teacher and their debut album, This Could Be Texas.
English Teacher formed just four years ago, while the members were studying at the Leeds Conservatoire. They are keyboardist Lily Fontaine, guitarist Lewis Whiting, bassist Nicholas Eden and drummer Douglas Frost, and they visited WXPN in Philadelphia back in July of this year to record a live set for WXPN'S Indie Rock Hit Parade. Enjoy.
This episode of World Cafe was produced by Eric Schuman and Will Loftus and produced for the web by Miguel Perez. Our senior producer is Kimberly Junod and our engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson.