Pitchfork

Yesterday, while us Americans were busy celebrating our independence n stuff, Canada was busy celebrating its music scene, as the nominees for this year's Polaris Music Prize were revealed after an extensive voting process. The Polaris Music Prize is basically the Canadian version of Britain's Mercury Music Prize, or America's troubled Shortlist/New Pantheon Awards.

A panel of more than 120 Canadian judges (full disclosure: they included Pitchfork's own Mark Pytlik) contributed their picks for the best albums the True North had to offer between July 1, 2005 and May 31, 2006. (Sorry folks, the Arcade Fire album came out in 2004.)

And the nominees are:

Broken Social Scene - Broken Social Scene
Cadence Weapon - Breaking Kayfabe
The Deadly Snakes - Porcella
Final Fantasy - He Poos Clouds
Sarah Harmer - I'm a Mountain
K'naan - The Dusty Foot Philosopher
Malajube - Trompe L'Oeil
Metric - Live It Out
The New Pornographers - Twin Cinema
Wolf Parade - Apologies to the Queen Mary

A 10-track limited edition compilation titled 2006 Polaris Music Prize Album of the Year Nominees (good one!) will be in stores on August 22. And on September 18, the winner of the prize (and a $20,000 cash award) will be announced at an event at Toronto's Phoenix Theatre. Stay tuned to find out which lucky artists are scheduled to quit their day jobs.