Montreal indie rock act Karkwa took home the Polaris Music Prize for its fourth album, “Les Chemins de Verre” or “The Glass Paths” (Audiogram).
The ceremony was held last night (Sept. 20) at CTV’s Concert Hall at the Masonic Temple in Toronto. The band received $20,000 Canadian ($19,415).
“Les Chemins de Verre” was recorded in part at La Frette studios in Paris during breaks on their French tour. “It’s an unbelievable thing to win this prize,” said the band in a statement. “We have a lot of respect for this contest and we think they do it for the right reason (music).”
The band was competing against albums from the Besnard Lakes, Broken Social Scene, Caribou, Dan Mangan, Owen Pallett, Radio Radio, the Sadies, Shad and Tegan and Sara.
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Sirius Satellite Radio and Radio 3 broadcast the ceremony live across North America, and around the world on the web at radio3.cbc.ca. The gala was also webcast live on muchmusic.com and will be broadcast Sept. 25 at 9pm ET on MuchMusic with repeat airings to follow.
Previous Polaris winners are Fucked Up (2009), Caribou (2008), Patrick Watson (2007) and Final Fantasy (2006). Voting by a 200-member jury resulted in a 10-title shortlist of Canadian albums released between June 1, 2009 and May 31, 2010. An 11 member gala grand jury then selected a winner while the event took place.
“This was probably the longest and most emotional deliberation in Polaris history. The short listed records are all of extreme high quality and they truly resonated with members of the jury whether or not they completely understood the language of the lyrics,” said Liisa Ladouceur, who oversees the grand jury of music journalists and broadcasters.