English Teacher nominated for BBC Radio 6 Album of the Year

English Teacher, who shot to fame this year culminating in a Mercury Prize for their debut album This Could Be Texas, have now been nominated by presenter Huw Stephens for the station's best album.

The yearly awards are announced each November, with presenters selecting their favourite album that has been released over the past 12 months.

In this year’s rundown, English Teacher will appear on BBC Radio 6 Music on Monday, December 9 alongside Amyl and the Sniffers, Violence Gratuite, Infinity Song and Warmduscher.

Band members include guitarist and former St Bede's pupil Lewis Whiting, drummer Douglas Frost, bassist Nicholas Eden and Colne vocalist Lily Fontaine.

Over the next five weeks, New Album Fix, presented by Matt Everitt, will explore each of the albums and the shows will feature voice notes from the presenters and why they are the best for them.

Cam Pia, 6 Music’s Music Editor says: “This wide-ranging list shows the breadth of our presenters’ tastes across the network and Albums of the Year is our moment to celebrate those records and give these picks even more prominence.

“We’ll be adding tracks from their favourite albums of 2024 to our weekly playlist until the end of the year and we’ll also hear from presenters about why they’ve chosen those albums in a series of New Album Fix specials.”

Their Mercury Prize win marked a celebration for northern music, who were the first act from outside London to win the award in a decade.

English Teacher were awarded the Mercury Prize in September (Image: PA) The lead song on the album, The World’s Biggest Paving Slab, pays homage to the two-tonne stone outside of Colne Town Hall.

Additionally, the band name-checks several Pendle figures throughout the album the band pay homage to the area with John Simm and Lee Ingley, from nearby Nelson, as well as the infamous witch trials.

Later the band references the historic village of Wycoller and explores its links with Charlotte Bronte.

Lead singer Lily Fontaine grew up in Colne (Image: PA)

Interviewed about the song’s creation, Lily said: “I wrote and recorded the demo in my bedroom in one day, during my final year of university in 2018.

“Moving to a city for university forced me to reflect on how my experience of growing up in and around Pendle, how witnessing the social, economic and political issues that exist around there in juxtaposition with the beauty of the landscape and the characters that live within in it, has shaped me into the artist and person that I am.

“These semi-rural stories leak into most of my writing. In particular, this song tackles delusions of grandeur and inferiority from the perspective of a small town’s local celebrities. It’s split into two halves.”

Having just completed their first US tour the band is heading to Japan at the start of January as well as performing at several major festivals next summer including Wide Awake and All Together Now.