Guardian First Album award: nominations

Last year's winners were the xx, but which of these 10 will take home the 2010 Guardian first album award, the coveted statuette, which will be chosen some time after Christmas from the extensive range at the trophy shop round the corner? The shortlist was voted for by the Guardian's music writers, and despite strong support, the likes of the Count & Sinden, Fenech-Soler and LoneLady were unfortunate to narrowly miss the final 10. This year, Guardian writers Alexis Petridis, Laura Barton, Rosie Swash and Will Dean will be joined on the final judging panel by the great Edwyn Collins – a man chosen for supporting young artists in his guise as a producer – and (commitments permitting), a representative of the xx. The winner will be announced on 28 January. Delphic Acolyte What the Guardian said: "When indie bands meddle in dance music, the result tends to either be lumpily awkward or involve their identity being submerged beneath a remix, but there's something impressively organic about [Acolyte] … The bleeps and beats never feel bolted-on: someone involved in Acolyte's production has a perfect understanding of the build-and-release dynamics of the dancefloor." Alexis Petridis Everything Everything Man Alive What the Observer said: "Everything Everything scorn the obvious. Why play four-four when your rhythm section could try to emulate the sound of a marching band skating on quicksand? Singer Jonathan Higgs is the north-easterner trying to cram as many syllables into a line as a rapper, while sounding like a choirboy eating a dictionary." Kitty Empire Gold Panda Lucky Shiner What the Guardian said: "Gold Panda's signature trick … is messing with samples; leaving them to skip and jam like a stuck CD, then knowing exactly when to stop before the feeling of slight wrongness becomes actual annoyance. A lot of these samples are of Indian and Chinese instruments – shopworn stand-ins for 'the exotic' that he makes sound genuinely strange by half-breaking them." Tom Ewing Ikonika Contact, Love, Want, Have What the Guardian said: "Sara Abdel-Hamid, aka Ikonika, is aware she has an unusual background for an electronic music producer. She was raised in west London under the roar of the jets coming in and out of Heathrow … a sound that finds its echo in the walls of synths that drench her debut album. She works with a deliberately limited sonic palette, but the variety of uses to which she puts it is remarkable." Alex Macpherson Male Bonding Nothing Hurts What the Guardian said: "John Peel used to talk approvingly of records that sounded as if they had made themselves – referring to music so unbridled that the guitars seemed to have wrested control of themselves back from their human owners. The debut album from … Male Bonding is one such record. Like the Canadian duo Japandroids, they are looking back to the early 90s for inspiration, to the overdriven-yet-blurry guitar sound J Mascis brought to bear with Dinosaur Jr." Michael Hann Marina and the Diamonds The Family Jewels What the Guardian said: "The Family Jewels [is] … crammed with eccentric pop-rock anthems that appear inaccessible, but prove on repeated listening to be irresistibly infectious … Her voice is tremulous and quirkily operatic, rich with vibrato as she inhabits a succession of self-penned songs pitched at, or near, the end of an emotional tether." Ian Gittins Mount Kimbie Crooks and Lovers What the Observer said: "One of post-dubstep's bright lights is Mount Kimbie … Their debut album pushes the sound into lonely, fragmented places, but locates pockets of warmth. The haunted piano-wire of Before I Move Off is nicely offset by a strolling guitar riff and playful vocals. It may feel slight at times, but Crooks & Lovers leaves you wanting more." Killian Fox Rumer Seasons of My Soul What the Guardian said: "There's something pleasing about the way it eschews all the standard baggage that comes with middle-of-the-road, Radio 2-playlisted artists … [It] has the pleasing sense of an album made to the artist's vision rather than the focus-grouped demands of the marketplace: almost uniquely in its chosen milieu, Seasons of My Soul sounds like a hit album without sounding like all the other hit albums." Alexis Petridis Stornoway Beachcomber's Windowsill What the Guardian said: "Beachcomber's Windowsill offers evidence that anyone put off Stornoway would be missing out. Zorbing rewards anyone who can get past the opening line by showing off the band's remarkable melodic facility: it rises and rises to an authentically life-affirming crescendo of brass and massed harmonies. Fuel Up is even better, a painfully acute, beautifully observed series of vignettes that start with a bored nine-year-old boy in the back of a car and end with him 18 years on, trying and failing to reconnect with a schoolfriend on a visit to his hometown." Alexis Petridis Tinie Tempah Disc-Overy What the Guardian said: "For most of Disc-Overy, Tinie Tempah pulls off the not-inconsiderable feat of being funny while still suggesting you take him seriously. Despite its flaws, the good bits of the album … sound like the work of a major talent, who might get better when he realises that he doesn't need to follow trends, that he's at his best when he's being himself." Alexis Petridis