Congratulations to PJ Harvey, Flood, John Parish and Mick Harvey on their Mercury Prize Success!

So another fantastic Mercury Music Prize ceremony has passed, and we’re thrilled to be able to congratulate PJ Harvey and her co-producers Flood, John Parish and Mick Harvey on scooping the highly-coveted award for 2011, for their work on PJ’s eighth studio album, Let England Shake, which was also mixed by Flood in Miloco’s Assault & Battery 1 studio.

PJ Harvey is now the most successful artist in the history of the Mercury, which has been running since 1992, with four Mercury nominations and two wins, the first being in 2001 for her seminal Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea. That year, when the ceremony was held on the same day as the 9/11 attacks, she was in America and so not present.

During last night’s acceptance speech she said, “It’s really good to be here this evening, because when I last won 10 years ago I was in Washington DC watching the Pentagon burning from my hotel window. So much has happened since then. This album took me a long time to write. It was very important to me. I wanted to make something meaningful, not just for myself but for other people, and hopefully to make something that would last.”

During the making of Let England Shake, PJ was heavily inspired by the horrors of war, and spent much time researching testimonials given by civilians and soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade. The album won by unanimous vote by the panel of Mercury judges.

So please join us in raising a glass to PJ and the team, for a richly-deserved second success at the Mercury. We’d also like to congratulate all the other nominees for their fantastic albums and performances on the night.