2009 Barclaycard Mercury Prize Awards Show next Tuesday, 8 September

The Barclaycard Mercury Prize Awards Show is being held next Tuesday evening, 8 September in London and will feature live performances from all 12 shortlisted artists for the first time.

The evening will culminate with the live announcement of the overall winner of the 2009 Barclaycard Mercury Prize for Album of the Year.

Many of the bands and artists will be flying into the UK especially for the prestigious event, which will be broadcast on BBC Two, Radio 1 and 6 Music throughout next week. BBC Two will be broadcasting live coverage of the event from 10pm on the night presented by Lauren Laverne and Jools Holland. BBC Two will also be broadcasting a 70 minute special on Friday 11 September at 11.40pm.

The 2009 Albums of the Year are:

Bat for Lashes Two Suns
Florence & The Machine Lungs
Friendly Fires Fires
Glasvegas Glasvegas
Kasabian West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum
La Roux La Roux La Roux
Led Bib Led Bib Sensible Shoes
Lisa Hannigan Sea Sew
Speech Debelle Speech Therapy
Sweet Billy Pilgrim Twice Born Men
The Horrors Primary Colours
The Invisible The Invisible

Press releases and images will be available at: www.mercuryprize.com/press

The Barclaycard Mercury Prize for ‘Albums of the Year’ is open to all genres of music from the UK and Ireland. It is judged solely through consideration of the music on the albums – it does not have categories, nor does it take into account sales, media exposure or live performances.

The Prize also celebrates the best live music in the UK through monthly ‘Barclaycard Mercury Prize Sessions’ with the Hospital Club -a stand alone, new initiative, which is not linked to the ‘Albums of the Year’ competition.

Barclaycard is one of the pioneers of new forms of payments and is at the forefront of developing viable contactless and mobile payment schemes for today and cutting edge forms of payment for the future. They have recently launched a new music site for their customers: www.barclaycardunwind.com