A complete guide to the 2012 Mercury music prize nominations

The Mercury Prize nominations filled me with so much excitement, I literally vomited myself inside-out.

But as I lay there in a bloody mess of colons and juices like an M&S advert from hell, I began to reflect on the list. Did I care? Had I heard of any of them? Shall I have sausages for tea?

The 2012 Mercury has pulled off the amazing feat of leaving me almost universally apathetic. Last year was great, with Metronomy, Everything Everything and Lady Peej of Harvey. I liked The xx in 2010, while recent years have given us Burial, the Klaxons and Hot Chip.

But where's Rustie? Where's Kuedo?

Maybe the Mayans are partly right, and in our brown depressive post-Olympic world, every one of us is three months from dying of boredom.

Still. I am a music blogger and I have to do my duty. Here, my sweet reader, is my complete guide to the 2012 Mercury Music Prize nominations. There is one slight problem: the list bores me so much, I've just guessed at what they're like instead of listening to them.

But, y'know, I'm a pretty good guesser.

Jessie Ware

Jessie was famous in the late 1980s as the Voice Of Gurning Rave, and with her album Devotion, she covers many club classics such as Nomad, Rozalla, the KLF and Don Pablo's Animals. Because of a bourbon biscuit addiction during a cold turkey phase in the 90s, she let herself go a bit. A lot. But sometimes, the gasping and the wheezing sounds a bit like DJ scratching, so it's okay.

Django Django

Following the critical acclaim of several shows in the West End written by monkeys with typewriters, hopes were high for the debut album by Django Django (pictured). Despite being a panda in Edinburgh Zoo, Django Django produced a truly human album, full of emotion and hope. Could have done without the twenty-minute bamboo drum solo, though.

The Maccabees

Forced circumcisions! The destruction of pagan altars! The murder of powerful Seleucid figures! These musical founders of the Judean Hasmonean dynasty may not be a cheerful bunch, but their barbershop quartet packs a punch. A guest rap from Ptolemy VI of Egypt on the benefits of the iPhone 5 is possibly just product placement, but hey, it's got a good beat.

Roller Trio

Disco. On Skates. Obviously.

Richard Hawley

My name is Richard Hawley. You remember me.
I was in Pulp for a bit, but after they were sorted for E
s and Wizz. Yes? No? Well stuff it, those times are long gone.
I was in the Longpigs too: we went on and on and on.

My name is Richard Hawley. You remember me.
I was beaten by the Artics in the 06 Mercury.
I haven't got time. Must rush, must dash. I really really oughta
Wax my hair and do 50s things with Elvis Presley's daughter.

Field Music

Ah, the sound of the field. Crickets chirping. Birds singing. Worms, erm, crawling. But don't be fooled by the pastoral name, because Field Music sound like the darker underbelly of the countryside. Cows being slaughtered. Crop dusters mowing down film actors. Farmer Giles falling into the blades of his combine harvester. Wildfires. Lynchings. Snakes. Basically, they're John Craven with a crossbow.

Michael Kiwanuka

Michael Kiwanuka made his name as the lead singer of Aphex Twin. The band's acrimonious split happened when Michael was possessed by demons accidentally released on the set of the video for the chart-topping pop hit Come To Daddy. His subsequent breakdown saw him recuperating with dozens of John Legend and Otis Reading records. He describes his solo album as extreme chillcore.

Ben Howard

It was never going to go well for Michael Howard's son-- sniiip. Ed.

Plan B

Plan B, or Nathan Plainsocks as he's still known in da hood, loads a wheelbarrow with bricks and smashes a bunch of windows on a Brixton estate. The residents come for him armed with baseball bats, machetes and unusually sharp sticks of carrot. Plan B is prepared. He launches into his album Ill Manors, a collection of smooth soul songs in a Timberlake stylee. They don't listen. He is destroyed to death.

Alt-J

Triangles within triangles inside a massive triangle balanced on the uppermost tip of a snooker triangle made from triangular bandages trying to play the triangle whilst shouting in a triangular voice "try angles" at the angles of a triangle whilst watching on a triangle television screen the 2009 Bermuda Triangle-themed horror film Triangle. Now imagine Mumford and Sons singing about that. There, you've got Alt-J.

Lianne La Havas

Don't bother: she's an anagram of 'Aha! Anal Snivel'.

Sam Lee

Sam and Lee, you'll remember, were the wacky pair that fronted SM:TV Live, hence the programme's name. They performed quirky skits such as Here's Me Singing Off Rhythm, Larks Mother That Sounds Funny and What's That You've Put In My Trousers. Their best known folk song is George Colin, named after the two presenters Sam and Lee had killed to get the spot on SM:TV. Sample lyric: "Oh ye olde lover of mine, stick that arsenic down yer bloomers, best kill all the viewers too, for thems be startin' rumours."

Further Fats: They say you can't keep a good tune down (the 2006 Mercury Prize)

Chris Martin and his band The Coldplops are what the Paralympics need

My favourite bit of the Paralympics closing ceremony was when Chris Martin walked into the stadium with his band The Coldplops, set up a wobbly trestle table and spent four hours applying paste to several miles of wallpaper.

I don't know if this actually happened. I don't even know if it's been on telly yet. I live inside the shell of a walnut where no telly gets in and no odour gets out.

But I can definitely say my favourite bit of the Paralympics closing ceremony was when Chris Martin walked into the stadium with his band The Coldplops and began cutting several fields of grass with a blunt Swiss army knife with most of its bits missing.

I'm assuming the Paralympics closes tonight. I've not had a telly for ages. You're watching it and I'm not. I've no idea. Clueless.

However, my favourite bit of the Paralympics closing ceremony was when Chris Martin walked into the stadium with his band The Coldplops and sorted his cutlery drawer into order, messed it up, arranged it neatly again and continued in this vein until the black hole at the centre of our galaxy formed into a giant replica face of 1988 BBC Sports Personality of the Year Steve Davis who then turned to Chris Martin and said precisely nothing because he couldn't think of anything to say.

If you were "boredmatised" (bored and traumatised) by The Coldplops in the closing ceremony, console yourself with the satisfying breaks on this great little release from Ninja Tune: Shuttle's Halo. It's a bloke who's played with Passion Pit or something and it's guaranteed to be a million times better than Martin.

Further Fats: Mmm, Underworld, the world loves you (Olympics opening ceremony)

Video: "Orbital sample Stephen Hawking"

I don't know where to begin. Underworld's music for the Olympic opening ceremony had me teary-eyed and gobsmacked. It led to a gushy post a month ago in which all I could write about was toast.

And now Orbital at the Paralympic opening ceremony. With Stephen Hawking. Wearing Orbital glasses.

Truly speechless. Between the two ceremonies, 38 million viewers got to see my favourite bands. And that's not counting the many millions more beyond our borders.

Apparently some sport is happening too.

My gob is thoroughly smacked..

Further Fats: My review of Wonky, which includes Where Is It Going, used in the above clip.

Greenbelt Arts Festival and why it matters to me

Written at Greenbelt Arts Festival at 8pm on Monday August 27th 2012, with some adjustments added later:

Twenty long years ago, I stood freezing in a rain-knackered field of mud-o-geddon watching the Proclaimers bang out songs of fishing, fornicating and fighting (possibly: I wasn't listening).

Yesterday, I found myself passing through a muddy field at the same festival wondering why so many people were gathered in their hundreds, their camping chairs floating in brown lakes of intestinal parasites and typhoid-ridden worm feces.

Yep. It was the Proclaimers again. Charlie and the other one that looks like Charlie got really Scottish with their guitars. I accidentally stayed for the whole gig, rooted to the spot by an overwhelming sense of nostalgia and whimsy. I could see myself two decades ago; I wondered if time had become a loop.

This blog post is not a review of the Twin Godfathers of Del Amitri Pop Jangling. It's a reflection on Greenbelt, a festival which is as much a part of my DNA as that probe suppository those aliens gave me last time I saw Squarepusher.

If you need a bit of context, you can read about Greenbelt in other blog posts, such as the time I went to some toilets, or when I spoke a man, or when I went into a tent for a bit. Oh, the stories I'll be telling my grandchildren.

Greenbelt is a Christian arts festival with lashings of liberalism. This year, they had Robin Ince, Speech Debelle, Nitin Sawhney, Frank Skinner, Asian Dub Foundation and Peter Tatchell. There is plenty of churchy stuff too if you like that kind of thing. There is music, there is art, there are tea tents, and I've attended almost every one since 1992. Loads of attendees have been to many more than that.

The festival tends to attract music artists on career-slides, although they were quick to get the likes of U2 and Moby before they went stratospheric. Neither is it big on electronic music, although I heard some filthy dubstep on one of the three music stages on Monday.

Greenbelt also causes consternation among anti-gay and anti-Palestine campaigners. A devotee of a more evangelical festival once warned me that Greenbelt was full of "gays and witches". He was wrong about the witches.

But it's there's more to Greenbelt than the content or its supposed political stance or its boundary-poking.

Greenbelt is where I live; it's where I centre myself.

It's a place of discovery: my talents, my sexuality, my careers, new friends. There are certain folk I only ever meet in Greenbelt's real ale tent (called The Jesus Arms), and when I see them it's like arriving home, opening the door and seeing family. Even though I only speak to them once a year. It's seems illogical and it's hard to explain.

Greenbelt matters because it gives me roots in a world of judgementalism and homophobia, in a world where people use religion to enforce their own power and prejudices. It makes me feel valued and to want to be a better me. I also get to do fun things like run events with Sanctus 1.

Next year, Greenbelt celebrates its 40th festival. I will have been to half of them (and will be celebrating 40 years of me too). Just writing this blog post finds me rooted to the spot by a sense of nostalgia and whimsy, as I was in that muddy Proclaimers field as I mentally battled their damn infectious melodies. I'm a techno-head... must break away... a-hah, a-hah... gaaaaah, stop it.... Yeah, I know, I'm not proud.

I do need to stop. I have to make the 130-or-so mile journey back to Manchester shortly. Not 500 miles. Just 130.

Meanwhile, I'll be processing my amazing few days at Greenbelt 2012 as I wash the mud from my clothes. If you want to read more about the festival, see Robin Ince's take on Greenbelt here.

Pictured: a fizzy drinks fan at the Tiny Tea Tent

Further Fats: the time I live-remixed a communion service

Because / a melon / only slightly: birthday thoughts

Another birthday is crushed underfoot by the hippo of time, so it seems appropriate to look back over the last 12 months and ask myself some important questions:

- Why?
- What with?
- Did it hurt?

Among the many highlights of the past year was the moment I was crowned Miss Manchester. It all seems a blur, but I do remember being hoisted through the city streets on palm leaves, feathers and heavy-duty scaffolding. The sash matched my varicose veins.

In December, I trapped all of Manchester's police in the sewers and injected explosives into all the concrete. I then imploded our American football stadium before making a man in a bat costume climb up a bit of a wall.

The other week, I gave up my Fat Roland moniker and became Thin Malcolm for a day. This time was largely spent flat on my face weeping furiously into the threadbare weave of my carpet. I then went on Jeremy Kyle and fought myself for custody of myself. Good times, good times.

Birthdays are about presents, so here are two things. Firstly, a Hounds Of Hulme track I recorded today (see below). It's a bit rough-and-ready, relying too much on preset instruments, but I like it. The energy from the track largely rose from watching the awful Olympic closing ceremony on iPlayer. In the words of Twitter's ever-reliable funny bloke Vivmondo, "I suppose we'll simply never know why David Bowie turned down the opportunity to appear alongside Ed Sheeran and a tape of Kate Bush."

Then after the music, why not click here for a series of inspiration quotes I bombarded by Facebook friends with over the weekend. I hope you too will find them inspiring enough to find your place on the carpet, that sweet spot in the dust and the fluff and the skin.

It's just a bit of a wall. I don't see what all the fuss was.



Further Fats: Chillin' out maxin' relaxin' all cool (my birthday three years ago)

Snoop left his old name lion about somewhere

Kanye Leopard.

LL Cool Jaguar.

Busta Panther.

Notorious BIG (CAT).

Ghostface Puma.

This is the world in two years time.  Snoop Doggity-Dogg, best known for his hits My Name Is Snoop Dogg, Snoop Dogg Is My Name and Drop It Like It's Snoop Dogg Yes That's My Shizzling Name, has changed his name to Snoop Lion.

This is the biggest name change in popular music since the Morning Benders toured the UK to gales of laughter. Snoop Puddytat probably phoned Prince to ask for advice, although all he'd get is crackles on the line and sound of the paisley berk drawing squiggles on his face in crayon.

I like cats. Scratchy, Simon's Cat, Snarf, Stimpy, they're all great. But other than Orbital's talking ones, I'm not sure I want them in my music. 'Caterwaul's a word for a reason, you know. Before others start changing their names, I hope they paws for thought. Paws. Pause. Hello? Is this microphone on?

And it's the weird transition. Eek-a-Mouse wouldn't change his name to Eek-a-Buffalo, and neither would a dog turn into a lion. If they did, the local park would get much more interesting very quickly. And not in a good way.

Snoop's real name is Calvin. He's even got that wrong. That was the boy; Hobbes was the lion.

Still, he's working with Major 'Diplo' Lazer, the chap behind MIA's ear-busting Paper Planes who describes his own music as Hare Rama James Bond Ethiopian lumberjack. And as long as Snoop Liony Lionn doesn't start rhyming his name with "iron" and "zion" (why, Bob, why?!), we should be okay.

KRS-Ocelot.

No, it doesn't work. It just doesn't work.

Further Fats: Homoerotica *and* analogue ambience: my levels of internet presence (in which I plug a website that has since, wisely, changed its name).

Mmm Underworld, the world loves you

The Olympic opening ceremony bandwagon has not only bolted, it has sprouted jet engines and shot off to the dark side of the moon. But I have to talk about it for one reason and one reason alone. 

Lemon Interupt.

This was a little-known house music act that shared a label with Terry Farley and Ashley Beedle in the early 1990s. The playful repeating harmonica on Big Mouth was a style later appropriated by the likes of The Grid and, yeesh, the Rednex.

More importantly, they were better known as Underworld, whose music lent so much energy to the rising chimneys and flaming flutes of Friday night's telly.

Underworld expressed the 90's fractured postmodernism better than Zoo TV or grunge, with Edward Lear-style blethering spilling out of their music and, through Tomato, their design aesthetic.

Their third album dubnobasswithmyheadman gave us the bold epics Mmm Skyscraper I Love You, with its visions of Elvis, fat Jesus and whipped cream, and Dark & Long which you heard in the opening ceremony. Yes, I said third album. Their first two were synth pop efforts for Sire and are for purists only.

By the time they were shouting "lager, lager" - actually not one of their strongest tracks - many dance-heads could claim Underworld as part of their musical DNA. As part of their emotional DNA. We had the MTV-baiting slo-mo of Push Upstairs, their immense anthem Rez, and soundtracks for Anthony Minghella, Danny Boyle and the Royal National Theatre.

Given all this history, when I tuned into BBC iPlayer with "I AM CYNICAL" already written in vinegar on my computer screen, I wasn't quite expecting the Underworld feast that followed. Always Loved A Film, Moon In Water, Dirty Epic, Crocodile... even their immense pieces And I Will Kiss and Caliban's Dream nicked bits from other Underworld tracks. That lead to the flame being lit with a synth line ripped from Two Months Off.

It was unbelievable. Let's say your favourite food is toast, but no-one else knows about toast so it feels like your little secret. You know that by applying heat to bread, it goes brown and crunchy, but you want everyone else just to carry on enjoying their floppy, disappointing room-temperature Tesco's finest loaves. Then after 20 years of loving toast and secretly meeting other people that like toast, the moon has suddenly become a grill and every building on earth has been replaced by a perfectly smoking slice of Hovis. The population is amazed as they dance through the streets with giant butter knives shouting "toast! toast! toast! we like it the most! most! most!". Children skip through fountains of crispy crumbs before scuttling off to dark alleyways to sniff marmalade. Toast is the thing. Uneaten sandwiches spill out of overflowing bins, landfill sites double in height with slices of gravy-soaked bread, and although the white / brown / wholemeal / Mighty White war breaks out in the Middle East, the future is toast. The world is enjoying your little secret.

I agree that the Olympic opening ceremony was a worthless diatribe of propaganda for evil things like the NHS, multiculturalism, pop music, lesbians, industry, sheep and people dancing in top hats. How can we not hate all of those things? But everyone who watched it got a lesson in Underworld. And, for that matter, their collaborator High Contrast.

In 40 years time, one of the surviving members of Underworld, all wrinkles and no reputation, will be dragged on stage at royal jubilees and sports ceremonies to perform out-of-tune versions of fading classics. While the other one narrates Thomas the Tank Engine. Meanwhile, I dedicate this 650th blog post to one of my favourite bands come good. 650 is the rate at which Underworld resonate. It's measured in herts or gammas or--

LEMON INTERUPT.

Oh very funny. We've got the Rednex for the closing ceremony, right?

Further Fats: Chosen Words - U is for Underworld

Hounds Of Hulme: T_CHN_L_GY preview

They say music journalists are failed musicians, which suggests releasing an album may not be not such a good idea.

Then again, 50 'Thirty One Pounds And Eighty Six Pence At Current Exchange Rates' Cent said "I love you like a fat kid loves cake" which suggests to me all music journalists are failed cakes and I should go ahead and stick an album in the oven anyway.

On Friday August 3, the Hounds Of Hulme will release T_CHN_L_GY, which is months of me fiddling about with a very limited range of recording gear with an imaginary horse at my side. (See the list of band members on the site.) What's more, it will be utterly free to download or stream.

Here, dear reader, is a quick guide to what's on it. Hey, it's what the NME would do.

1 Strung Out - a bunch of psychotic people spiral aimlessly over music you may recognise from my 50 Shades Of Grey parody A Facial Sonata.

2 Reverse The Line - a steady builder of techno scrumminess with slightly sinister overtones.

3 FM Drop - an acid house tribute to old radio frequencies.

4 Don't Ask Me - sample-drenched old-school retro work-out.

5 Decade - de-tuned rave attack with choppy synths and a bleepy lead.

6 Acid Minors - a sweet acid-pop track with a deliberately formulaic pop structure.

7 Unsure - lyrics break apart over busy house music while Blurry Squirrel's harmonica meets a mysterious vocalist called Johnny Mobius

8 Hurtlovedandlost - a "diode-distressing" remix of No Ceremony's Hurtlove.

9 Rise of the Dead Robots - a seven-minute paeon to the machines, a 4/4 juggernaut (or at least, a well-serviced transit van).

10 Voiceinstruktion - short and sweet techno pop imploring you for a rewind. No retro stone is unturned.

11 Siren - simple arpeggios. Don't forget to take some cocktail-stick cheese and pineapple on your way out.