After releasing the 40 long-listed albums last month, the Polaris Music Prize selection has finally been whittled down to the following ten albums:

A Tribe Called Red – We Are The Halluci Nation
BADBADNOTGOOD – IV
Leonard Cohen – You Want It Darker
Gord Downie – Secret Path
Feist – Pleasure
Lisa LeBlanc – Why You Wanna Leave, Runaway Queen?
Lido Pimienta – La Papessa
Tanya Tagaq – Retribution
Leif Vollebekk – Twin Solitude
Weaves – Weaves

Voted on by a jury of Canadian journalists, bloggers, industry professionals and critics, the Polaris long list is always chosen based on “artistic metric, without consideration of genre or record sales.”

Feist, A Tribe Called Red, BADBADNOTGOOD and Tanya Tagaq are all repeat nominees, while Gord Downie, Lisa Leblanc, Lido Pimienta, Leif Vollebekk, Weaves and the late Leonard Cohen are all first-timers.

Critic favourites like The Weeknd’s Starboy, Hannah Georgas’ For Evelyn, John K. Samson’s Winter Wheat and MMVAs performer Jessie Reyez’s Kiddo were notably absent from the shortlist.

Last year, Montreal electro DJ Kaytrananda won the coveted award, taking home bragging rights and the cool $50,000 cash prize that goes along with it.

The award will be presented at Polaris Music Prize Gala, going down on September 18 at the Carlu in Toronto.