The Taite Music Prize: announcing the Winner

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Taite Music Prize: announcing the Winner!

The winner of the third annual Taite Music Prize 2012 is Unknown Mortal Orchestra for their self-titled album released on Seeing Records.

Award judge Hugh Sundae (Entertainment Editor, NZ Herald Online) said “I can’t think of any releases with Ruban’s name attached I haven’t loved and he’s done it again. The UMO album couldn’t have been made by another artist, it’s exciting and fucking awesome.”

Named after the late Dylan Taite, one of the country's most highly respected music journalists, this was the third year for the award. In a similar vein to several international awards, The Taite Music Prize's purpose is to recognise outstanding creativity for an entire collection of music contained on one album. Unknown Mortal Orchestra win a cash prize of $10,000, to be spent as they wish. The Taite Music Prize was organised by Independent Music New Zealand (IMNZ), and the cash prize is kindly supplied by PPNZ Music Licensing.

The award winner was announced at an invitation-only event attended by around 200 people at The Loft, Q Theatre in Auckland’s central city. Ladi 6, the winner of the 2011 Taite Music Prize, attended the event in an ambassadorial role, and along with Julien Dyne played a DJ set.

The voting panel to determine the finalists was made up of a broad section of music media/industry specialists plus all current members of Independent Music New Zealand (IMNZ). The judges made their decision based entirely on the artistic merit on the album. Sales, genres, artist recognition or popularity are not contributing factors in their decision making process.

The event also marked 10 years of IMNZ – an organisation established to support independent artists, labels and distributors. Chairperson Ben Howe said “we are very proud to see the growth of the local independent music community. We can now host an event like the Taite and see a large number of really fantastic albums nominated”.

Independent Music New Zealand (IMNZ), PPNZ Music Licensing and NZ On Air (NZOA) are the principal music industry supporters of the Taite Music Prize in conjunction with the Taite family. Other contributing sponsors for the Taite Music Prize 2012 include the NZ Music Commission, The Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA), Native Tongue Music Publishing, Jagermeister, Amplifier.co.nz and Moa Beer.

ENDS

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