With no clear frontrunner, it was a tough call. But the winner's warm, lo-fi feel and crackly samples made the jury return to it again and again
On the phone from his new home in Germany, the electronic auteur Gold Panda ? who offers only Derwin as a real name ? sounds happily bemused at the news his instrumental debut, Lucky Shiner, has won the 2010 Guardian First Album award. "I've never won anything before in my life," he says. "I came second in paperboy of the year once. I got a McDonald's voucher for that."
The award's longlist was voted for by the Guardian's music writers, before the final judgment was cast by a panel comprising representatives from Film&Music, the Guide and guardian.co.uk/music, plus Edwyn Collins ? invited not just for his own work, but for his commitment to new music as a producer ? and his wife and manager Grace Maxwell (last year's winners, the xx, had to drop out of judging at the last minute owing to writing commitments). Unlike last year, when the xx comfortably outstripped all competition, this year there was no clear frontrunner. Plausible arguments were made in favour of both Ikonika's and Mount Kimbie's idiosyncratic, defiantly non-generic takes on dubstep; Collins liked Tinie Tempah; Everything Everything's chances were severely undermined by Maxwell reading out some of their lyrics in a disparaging voice ("You're a horrible woman," frowned her husband); there was a surprising amount of love in the room for Rumer, whose voice seems to disarm even the most vociferous critics of her Radio 2-friendly sound. In the end, though, Gold Panda's combination of warm, lo-fi electronica, a patchwork of crackly samples and melodies that stick just pipped Stornoway's Beachcomber's Windowsill. The latter had lyrical richness on its side, the former just edged it by dint of the fact that it's the album the panel have found themselves coming back to the most.
"I can't really believe the success the album's had," notes Derwin. "I keep expecting someone to turn around and go: 'It's a joke! Gotcha!' I thought it would be really badly received, to be honest, because it was so simple, so pop, almost. I wanted things to have verses and choruses, almost like it would if it had vocals on it."
His surprise is presumably compounded by the album's humble origins: despite being infused with oriental sounds ? the result of a year spent in Japan - for the most part Lucky Shiner was recorded in his aunt and uncle's front room in rural Essex. Its samples were either recorded on Derwin's mobile phone ? "there's a recording of my grandmother on one track, the sound of the pipes gurgling in my aunt's house after you've had a shower, just things that were relevant to me" ? or come from albums bought in charity shops. "I grew up with hip-hop, and that's the way they made hip-hop. I had friends who were into getting all the original breaks from the funk records and everything, stuff no one's used, but I couldn't afford to do that, so I just ended up buying whatever."
Perhaps the most striking thing about Lucky Shiner is how human it sounds. Despite Derwin's love of the more challenging end of electronic music ("I like glitchy stuff, the idea of things going wrong"), there's none of the icy emotional distance people tend to associate with electronica or sample-based music. "I wanted something quite focused. I decided to make songs about people, about family, things that are relevant to me. Before We Talked and After We Talked are made with this old Yamaha keyboard I got off eBay from a vicar for a pound. My friend went with me to get it, we had a real heart-to-heart on the way there, and then, not long after, he passed away. It's weird, when he died, the keyboard started dying, too, malfunctioning, all the connections went, it started making all these clicking sounds. I used this keyboard to make all the sounds on the track, turning up the crackle to make the drums."
And how does he view Lucky Shiner's improbable success? "Sometimes I think it's ridiculous, really. It's just a couple of tracks I made. But then I think how much music I love affects me ? " His voice trails off, happily.
Connie Nielsen Melissa George Cameron Richardson Chandra West Kasey Chambers
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