Kate Tempest talks her 2017 Hyundai Mercury Prize nomination: “I was so excited!”

It’s no mean feat to earn yourself one 2017 Hyundai Mercury Prize nomination, but for Kate Tempest, tonight’s a very special evening indeed. The South London poet-singer-songwriter extraordinaire has received a second nod for her most recent album ‘Let Them Eat Chaos’, and needless to say, when she got the news, she was pretty made up.

“When I got the news of the nomination, I was actually in an airport coming home, and I was like, ‘Ahhhhhhh!” Tempest told us, ahead of tonight’s ceremony. “I was so excited, but then when I got home, I listened to the whole thing for the first time since we made it and it really moved me. It takes you right back to that moment of recording it, and finishing it - you kinda forget about that [feeling[ when you’re touring it.”

That’s a sentiment echoed by her producer Dan Carey, who also joined her on the red carpet. “It has really taken us back to the time that we made it, and the feeling of doing it,” he told us.

Despite her second full-length - and follow-up to 2014’s ‘Everybody Down’ - being released almost a year ago now, Tempest confirms that, whilst the record is very much a document of a specific moment in time, there’s still a lot of life within it. “Because we’ve been gigging it, every time we [play] it it’s different. It refreshes itself, and it means something different. The audience is different, so the sentiment is different. The record itself is a testament to the time when we made it, but the piece has a life in performance, which is really cool.”

Listen to the Kate Tempest-curated 2017 Hyundai Mercury Prize playlist via Apple Music below.