Today on BBC Radio 6, DJ Lauren Laverne announced the 12 musical acts that have been nominated for the highly prestigious Mercury Prize award.

The Mercury Prize is a British and Irish based award for best album of the calendar year. Established in 1992, it was to be an alternative to the Brit Awards; offering more diverse and experimental bands the chance to win awards rather than the more mainstream Brit Awards.

It often offers a significant boost in album sales to the winner, with 2013 winner James Blake experiencing a 2500% rise in album sales following his victory.

Previous well known winners are the likes of Elbow, Primal Scream, Arctic Monkeys, Franz Ferdinand and many others.

The nominees and their respective albums are as follows:

Aphex Twin – ‘Syro’
Benjamin Clementine – ‘At Least For Now’
C Duncan – ‘Architect’
Eska – ‘Eska’
Gaz Coombes – ‘Matador’
Ghostpoet – ‘Shedding Skin’
Florence + The Machine – ‘How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful’
Jamie xx – ‘In Colour’
Roisin Murphy – ‘Hairless Toys’
Slaves – ‘Are You Satisfied?’
SOAK – ‘Before We Forgot How to Dream’
Wolf Alice – ‘My Love Is Cool’

It seems that the continuing trend of electronica infused indie is prevalent in the list. With Wolf Alice probably being the only musical act that could be regarded as rock based. However, the Mercury Prize continues its reputation of giving alternative and lesser known artists a chance to win an award when they would normally not be regarded. For example, SOAK, whilst experiencing a growing musical reputation has not been in the music industry for a long time; with ‘Before We Forgot How to Dream’ being her debut album.

The biggest names in the shortlist are without a doubt indie pop band Florence + The Machine; having very recently headlined Glastonbury this year. However former Supergrass lead singer Gaz Coombes does still have a large reputation in the music industry.

You will be able to listen to all the artists and their albums here if you have spotify.

The eventual winners of the Mercury Prize will be announced in a months time on November 20th, which will be broadcast on BBC for UK based viewers.