So it’s the day of The Mercury Prize awards and because I’m a very lucky boy I shall be there. And so will the group that should rightfully walk away with this year’s prize -  The XX.

Their debut album, like most genuinely brilliant albums manages to create its own unique space and sound and textures. It sounded like no one else in 2009. Yes there is a passing reference or even homage to the Young Marble Giants in The XX’s minimalist, almost restrained instrumentation and arrangements. But their apparent complete inability to play even one unnecessary note or sing one word that doesn’t absolutely need to be there proves once again that in music less really can sometimes be more – and that they are the current masters in this very special art.

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I’m not quite sure what was most surprising. Yoko Ono being responsible for one of the most imaginative, creatively diverse and sublime albums of 2009. Or the fact that she was 76 years old when she recorded it.

Whatever your prejudices though - and even normally mild mannered people seem to hold one or two against Yoko - ‘Between My Head And The Sky’ is one of the most incredible albums of ’09.

‘Healing’, like most of the other tracks on the album just should not work. Bizarre, sometimes unintelligible pronunciation, a seemingly random splattering of ahs, umms, shouts and wails, and lyrics that on first hearing seem to be either embarrassingly naive or downright silly.

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Tricky’s becoming one of those Great British musical anomalies/geniuses. After rapping with Massive Attack on their first album in 1991 he could easily have become a bit-part player in their success. Instead he’s released a string of albums and singles that are characterised by dense, layered music and his unique whispering-style singing and an almost pathological desire to take risks. Continually pushing the boat out into unchartered waters that most successful musicians wouldn’t dream off. It doesn’t always work but when it does he produces breathtakingly powerful pieces that sound like no one else. And he now looks like one of the most significant artists to emerge from the Massive Attack/Portishead/’Bristol Sound’ phenomenon.

The original ‘C’Mon Baby’ is from ‘Knowle West Boy’ which is another album that was inexplicably (unless I’m missing something?) left off the 2010 Mercury Prize short-list.

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The first artists to feature twice on ABON, here with a second track from ‘The Glare’ album, which is my album of 2009. But clearly not one of the Mercury Prize jury’s as it’s mysteriously absent from their short-list.

Like all the tracks on the album - and like ABON 0021 - David McAlmont used a real news story as inspiration for the lyrics which he sings over music written and previously recorded in instrumental form by Michael Nyman. In this case the story concerns a couple who ran a BP service station in New Zealand, applied for a $10,000 overdraft and found that the bank had deposited $10,000,000 into their account by mistake. They then took the money and ran. To China I think.

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The Mercury Prize always throws up some weird stuff.

Usually in the shape of a bizarre short-list – ‘bizarre’ as in neglecting many deserving but less well-known albums rather than ‘bizarre’ as in full of esoteric music. Admittedly they always seem to short-list a couple of more ‘esoteric’ albums but something about their selection process means they always, ALWAYS get the outliers completely wrong.

This year is no exception with some very strange inclusions and omissions on the weirder side. Over the next 2 weeks I’ll make some suggestions for what should have been.

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Unexpected collaborations by artists from different backgrounds and styles seems to be quite a theme of the last 20 years or so. Maybe it’s because the tribal nature of music appreciation has become far less pronounced over this period than it used to be.

Even so I don’t think many saw this collaboration coming or would have predicted the stunningly beautiful results.

Michael Nyman has been writing and recording classical music since the early ’70′s. He was one of the first artists on Brian Eno’s Obscure label and then became famous through his Peter Greenaway film scores such as ‘The Cook, The Thief, His Wife And Her Lover’.

David McAlmont on the other hand has had a ‘fits and starts’ career in pop and rock music. Possibly because he has such a beautiful but distinctive voice he seems to have struggled to find music that provides him with a platform that fits that voice. His most successful efforts were with Bernard Butler, the ex-Suede guitarist in 1994.

So the story of their collaboration goes something like this…

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