The short list for the 2026 Polaris Music Prize has been announced, with 10 different albums competing for the $30,000 grand prize.

These 10 records were selected from a long list of 40 albums, and the prize will be handed out to the best album, based solely on artistic merit without consideration for genre, record sales or popularity, as selected by a jury.

The full short list, powered by FACTOR is below:

Angine de Poitrine, Vol. IIAquakultre, 1783Begonia, Fantasy LifeBeverly Glenn-Copeland, Laughter In SummerBibi Club, AmaroCharlotte Cornfield, Hurts Like HellLes Louanges, Alouette!Peaches, No Lube So RudeRochelle Jordan, Through the WallTanya Tagaq, Saputjiji

This year, there is more cross-country representation compared to the 2025 short list: Angine de Poitrine, Les Louanges and Bibi Club make up the Quebec albums, while Begonia represents Manitoba and Aquakulture is based in Nova Scotia. Tanya Tagaq is from Nunavut, while Rochelle Jordan, Peaches, Charlotte Cornfield, and Beverly Glenn-Copeland make up Ontario’s nominees.

Starting July 19, the CBC Music radio series The Ten will return for another summer. The special takes an in-depth look at each of this year’s shortlisted albums leading up to the Polaris Concert and Award Ceremony on Sept. 22.

The Ten will be hosted by Odario Williams, with episodes broadcasting each Sunday on CBC Music and CBC Listen at 6 p.m. (6:30 p.m. in NL) until Sept. 20. Listeners can tune in on the CBC Listen app on CBC Music and listen on demand after each broadcast.

Read on to find out more about the shortlisted albums below and listen to episodes of The Ten. 

Name: Angine de Poitrine
Album: Vol. II
Hometown: Saguenay, Que.
Release date: April 3, 2026
Polaris history: This is the duo’s first appearance on the short list.

About the album: Beginning with the rapid, churning groove on opening track Fabienk, Quebec math and prog rockers Angine de Poitrine have cemented their wonderfully weird ride with their second album, Vol. II. Following the band’s explosive, viral performance on KEXP earlier this year, this album was one of the buzziest of this spring, with music fans and critics alike wondering what the polka-dotted pair would do next under their newfound spotlight.

The result was a winding, wonky and syncopated record, filled with microtonal sounds that demonstrate not only creativity, but technical skill. The project has earned bandmates Klek and Khn praise in outlets from the New York Times (“The band fully understands the power of rhythm, repetition, dissonance, surprise and noise, while it delivers them in a whimsical package”) and Pitchfork (“The pair claim they have been playing together for 20 years, and their telekinetic bond is apparent in these twisted arrangements”).

Vol. II is only six tracks long, however with all but one song clocking in over the six-minute mark, it feels just as robust as other records, purposefully twisting and looping into something that is energetically over the top. “The whole idea of the band was to assume a bit of a satirical approach to rock music in general,” Khn told Cult Mtl. And that sense of fun and play is evident in every track. — Natalie Harmsen

Name: Aquakultre
Album: 1783
Hometown: Halifax
Release date: Feb. 6, 2026
Polaris history: This is Aquakultre’s first Polaris shortlist appearance; both of his previous albums — 2020’s Legacy and 2022’s Don’t Trip — were longlisted.

About the album: “They thought we won’t survive, but our people thrived,” sings Lance Sampson, a.k.a. Aquakultre, on Scotia Born, the very first song we heard off 1783. He called it “an anthem celebrating the families and legacies of Black Nova Scotians, reminding Black Scotians how connected we are” — and it became the thesis statement for his record.

1783 started as a way for Sampson to find out more about his family history, and after years of research — part of which turned into a multi-season TV show called Generations: Black Memories of Nova Scotia — the artist discovered that his family goes back eight generations, reaching all the way back to when more than 3,000 Black Loyalists left New York and landed in Nova Scotia after the American Revolution.

Enlisting the talents of Linda Carvery, Measha Brueggergosman and Gary Beals, among others, Sampson worked with musician and producer (and CBC East Coast Music Hour producer) Erin Costelo to turn all this history into a 17-track concept album that spans genres and generations. Album opener What Are You Sayin’ swings with ease, the horns helping Sampson ask a common question growing up in Overtown (or Uniacke Square), one he wasn’t always sure how to answer. The haunting Gallows is the album’s centrepiece, a song about Sampson’s great-great-great grandfather, Daniel Perry Sampson, who was the last person executed in Halifax in 1935 — for a crime his family says he didn’t commit. 

Aquakultre titled his debut album Legacy, and it was a breath of fresh air from a newly rising artist in mid-2020. But with 1783, Sampson has continued to fulfill that first promise — and shine a light on the legacies of so many Black African Nova Scotian voices in the process. — Holly Gordon

Name: Begonia
Album: Fantasy Life
Hometown: Winnipeg
Release date: Oct. 24, 2025
Polaris history: This is Begonia’s second time on the short list; her album Powder Blue was shortlisted in 2023. Her debut album, Fear, was on the 2020 long list. 

About the album: What kind of existence do we imagine for ourselves? What does success look like and how can it be quantified? Begonia (a.k.a. Alexa Dirks) dives into the existential on her third album, Fantasy Life, while preserving the coy humour and revealing lyricism that has made her one of Canada’s most compelling pop outliers. In March, the album won Dirks her first Juno Award for adult alternative album of the year after two previous nominations in the same category.

Fantasy Life was written over a month in Los Angeles with Dirks’s longtime collaborators, writing duo Deadmen (Matt Peters and Matt Schellenberg), who also helped conceive her two previous albums, Powder Blue and Fear. In the opening line of My Fantasy Life, she sardonically says, “The world’s on fire and I’m going to write a pop song,” before diving into a stirring reflection on her career and finding her truest self onstage. Across the album, she contemplates the insecurity of aging (Out of My Control), the mundanity of love (Life of the Party), the woes of the industry (Conditional Love) and the escapism necessary to avoid a downward spiral (So High). 

For Dirks, life is about the marathon, not the sprint, and as she pieces together the bits of her life as it is now across this record, she’s not ashamed to admit the ways she’s found wanting. What makes Fantasy Life so endearing is that in her relatable vulnerability, she speaks to the self-doubt in all of us. Dirks told CBC Q’s Tom Power in an interview following the album’s release that her music career “isn’t about one singular success; it’s about making art and creating a world other people can step into and hopefully find some relief and authenticity in me saying it’s not always easy.” — Kelsey Adams

Name: Beverly Glenn-Copeland 
Album: Laughter in Summer
Hometown: Hamilton via Philadelphia
Release date: April 3, 2026
Polaris history: His 1986 album, Keyboard Fantasies, won the Polaris Slaight Family Heritage Prize in 2020. The prize celebrates albums released before Polaris’s inception in 2006.

About the album: After revealing a dementia diagnosis in 2024, Beverly Glenn-Copeland decided to trade crossword puzzles on the couch for crowds around the world. He told his wife, and musical partner, Elizabeth, “I have places I want to see and people I want to meet before I die. Since we have to make money, let’s make money doing what we love to do.” Now in his 80s, Glenn-Copeland is taking a triumphant final bow, and Laughter in Summer is the embodiment, with each song allowing him to be joyfully in command of the couple’s story. 

Despite no longer being able to transcribe his music, he can still perform, which is how the album came together. Each song was recorded in a single take, with Glenn-Copeland’s inescapable, soulful and chill-inducing voice driving them all. It’s seamless, with lyrics about love flowing effortlessly.

Glenn-Copeland has always possessed an undeniable ability to make listeners feel, and now he’s turning that dial up to 11 on songs like Harbour, a gentle duet with Elizabeth, and Let Us Dance, a re-imagined, choir-heavy version of a song from his cult-favourite new-age album Keyboard Fantasies. The undercurrent of sadness within many of the melodies across the project is often halted in its tracks by the palpable emotion with which Copeland sings. It makes the re-worked old songs, such as Prince Caspian’s Dream, feel not just refreshed but entirely transformed. And the new ones, including Children’s Anthem, sound almost holy. Overall, it’s an exercise in how the Glenn-Copelands love each other.