When turgid corporate-rock embarrassments Nickelback started cleaning up Canada's Grammy-equivalent, the Juno Awards, in the '00s, something needed to be done. Taking inspiration from the UK's long-running Mercury Music Prize, in 2006, a crew of enterprising Canadians established the Polaris Music Prize; an award given to the best Canadian album based on artistic merit alone.

Putting their money with their mouths were, the Polaris peeps handed over their first-ever oversize-novelty-cheque ($20,000 cash!) to Final Fantasy's wondrous He Poos Clouds. With the Prize having grown in size and scope since then, the 2009 'Shortlist' nominees have been revealed, setting a field of 10 to be in the running for that fat wad of filthy lucre.

2009's field is headlined by Metric's shiny radio-pop pleaser Fantasies, Chad VanGaalen's junkyard death poem Soft Airplane, Great Lake Swimmers' alt-country oil painting Lost Channels, F**ked Up's noxious hardcore mess The Chemistry of Common Life, the Jeff Buckley-ish balladry of '07 winner Patrick Watson's Wooden Arms, and Somali ex-pat rapper K'Naan's major-label debut, Troubadour.

Arcade Fire-wannabes Hey Rosetta! already won the fan-voted fake Polaris, the 'Verge,' last year for Into Your Lungs (and around in your heart and on through your blood), and they're definite contenders to add more cash to their band coffers. There's also albums by people named Elliott Brood, Joel Haskett, and Malajube, who you probably have to be Canadian to have heard of.

Taking a look at the 40-strong 'Long List' that the Short List was whittled down from reveals that voters, for reasons known only to themselves ignored albums by Japandroids, Land of Talk, Women, and Wolf Parade. Not to mention Handsome Furs' secretly great and wildly-underrated Face Control, the work of Wolf Parade co-songsmith, Dan Boeckner.

The winner will be unveiled at a gala ceremony on September 21. Let's hope the winner's name is VanGaalen.

• Interview: Chad VanGaalen
• Interview: Metric
• Introducing: Japandroids
• Interview: Land of Talk
• Interview: Women

When Lou Barlow released his first "proper" solo album, Emoh, in 2005, he told me it was a "completion of a journey." Barlow had made piles of ostensibly-solo albums as Sentridoh and Sebadoh in the early-'90s, and issued the ultra-scarce live set Lou Barlow Plays Waterfront in '95, but, years removed from those hyper-prolific days, he stood behind a stand-alone, high-fidelity album with his own name on it.

Completing this "journey" lead Barlow back to something that, in 2005, was completely unexpected: the Dinosaur Jr reformation. "It just feels perfect, to me, like it’s some written-in-the-stars thing," Barlow said, of the band he was controversially kicked out of getting back together.

In the four years since, Dinosaur Jr's born-agan status has gone from unlikely to unbelievable; their latest LP, Farm, their best since, like, 1993's Where You Been.

When not knocking out insanely-loud bass for Dinosaur Jr, Barlow's found time to polish off another album of sad, solo songs. Goodnight Unknown will be released, by Merge Records, on October 6.

In support of such, Barlow will marry his two musical extremes on one long tour. Across six weeks of Dinosaur Jr shows, Barlow will be the opening act; playing his solo songs along with backing-band The Missingmen. It'll be one long Rocktober, then, for Barlow.

Goodnight Unknown Track List:
1. "Sharing"
2. "Goodnight Unknown"
3. "Too Much Freedom"
4. "Faith in Your Heartbeat"
5. "The One I Call"
6. "The Right"
7. "Gravitate"
8. "I'm Thinking..."
9. "One Machine, One Long Fight"
10. "Praise"
11. "Take Advantage"
12. "Modesty"
13. "Don't Apologize"
14. "One Note Tone"

Laughin' Lou Barlow's Double-Duty Tourin':
September 30: Toronto, ON - Phoenix Concert Theatre
October 1: Montreal, QUE - Pop Montreal Festival
October 2: Cambridge, MA - Middle East
October 3: Cambridge, MA - Middle East
October 4: Clifton Park, NY - Northern Lights
October 7: New Haven, CT - Toad's Place
October 8: Washington, DC - 9:30 Club
October 9: Philadelphia, PA - Theatre of the Living Arts
October 10: Columbus, OH - Newport Music Hall
October 11: Pontiac, MI - The Crofoot
October 13: Madison, WI - The Majestic Theatre
October 14: St. Louis, MO - The Pageant
October 15: Chicago, IL - Vic Theatre
October 16: Louisville, KY - Headliner's Music Hall
October 17: Atlanta, GA - Variety Playhouse
October 26: Kansas City, MO - The Beaumont Club
October 27: Omaha, NE - Slowdown
October 29: Boulder, CO - Boulder Theater
October 30: Fort Collins, CO - Aggie Theatre
November 3: Tempe, AZ - Marquee Theatre
November 4: Solana Beach, CA - Belly Up Tavern
November 6: San Francisco, CA - The Fillmore
November 7: Portland, OR - Wonder Ballroom

Last month, I dropped the details of Vivian Girls' forthcoming sophomore set, Everything Goes Wrong. With its September 8 release-date looming ever-closer, the spunky New York trio have unveiled a long, long run of shows to take them there and beyond.

With spots at the Pitchfork Music Festival, Way Out West, and Bumbershoot, and shows in Mexico, Japan, and Australia all on the horizon, it's go to be a busy Summer/Fall/Southern-Hemispheric-Spring for the VGs. Full slate of dates roll out below.

Girls All Over the World:
July 9: Mexico City, MX - El Almacén
July 16: Toronto, ON - Phoenix Theater
July 19: Chicago, IL - Pitchfork Music Festival
July 31: New York, NY - Whitney Museum
August 14: Goteberg, Sweden - Way Out West Festival
August 15: Helsinki, Finland - Flow Festival
August 25: New York, NY - Death By Audio
August 26: Philadelphia, PA - The Barbary
August 27: Pittsburgh, PA - Andy Warhol Museum
August 28: Columbus, OH - Summit
August 29: Champaign, IL - Cowboy Monkey
August 30: Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle
August 31: Minneapolis, MN - 7th St Entry
September 1: Fargo, ND - The Aquarium
September 4: Missoula, MT - Union Hall
September 6: Seattle, WA - Bumbershoot Festival
September 7: Portland, OR - TBA
September 9: San Francisco, CA - Rickshaw Stop
September 11: Los Angeles, CA - The Echo
September 18: Kyoto, Japan - Metro
September 19: Nagoya, Japan - KD Japon
September 20: Tokyo, Japan - Shibuya Seco
September 22: Tokyo, Japan - Shibuya o-nest
September 25: Sydney, Australia - Spectrum
September 26: Melbourne, Australia - Roxanne
September 27: Hobart, Australia - Brisbane Hotel
September 30: Melbourne, Australia - Northcote Social Club
October 1: Adelaide, Australia - Metro Hotel
October 2: Brisbane, Australia - Step Inn
October 9: Honolulu, HI - Loft Gallery and Lounge

Name: The Horse's Ha
From: Chicago, Illinois
Story: To the piano-bar born
Sound: Nancy & Lee

Once upon a Chicago night, a pair of star-cross'd Thrill Jockey alumni met. Janet Beveridge Bean —veteran of ragged-rock outfit Eleventh Dream Day and cowgirl sweethearts Freakwater— and James Elkington —the English ex-pat who fronted soft-pop outfit The Zincs— struck up a conversation that almost immediately took an interesting turn. When the subject turned to playing in tasteful piano-bars for large sums of money, an idea soon came up: they would play in tasteful piano-bars for large sums of money.

After working up a set of standards, Bean and Elkington soon abandoned those, and, then, abandoned their piano-bar dreams. Instead, they penned their own songs, and became a (sort of) band. One who, now, comes with the name The Horse's Ha.

Their debut LP as The Horse's Ha, Of the Cathmawr Yards (both band and album titles are references to infamous Welsh poet Dylan Thomas), is a set of duets matching Elkington's dapper baritone with Bean's honeyed voice. Evoking such beauty-and-the-beast pairings as Nancy & Lee and Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan, it's an album twangy, atmospheric, and vaguely mysterious; a moody, moonlit take on urbane country that's, frankly (and thankfully), far too spooky a soundtrack for some rarefied wine bar.

• Listen: The Horse's Ha, "Asleep in a Waterfall"
• Listen: The Horse's Ha, "The Piss Choir"

The Horse's Rides
July 3: Chicago, IL - Schuba's
July 27: Pittsburgh, PA - Thunderbird Cafe
July 28: Arlington, VA - IOTA
July 29: Philadelphia, PA - Johnny Brenda
July 30: Brooklyn, NY - Bruar Falls
July 31: Brooklyn, NY - The Bell House
August 1: New York, NY - Mercury Lounge
August 2: Cleveland, OH - Beachland Tavern
September 19: Champaign, IL - Pygmalion Festival

Photo © James Elkington