Hermitude Win $30,000 Australian Music Prize

Sydney beats outfit Hermitude have won this year's The Coopers Amp, picking up the $30,000 cash prize from PPCA for their record HyperParadise.

The announcement has just been made at a sit-down lunch in Sydney's The Basement.

The two members of Hermitude, Angus Stuart and Luke Dubber, have been making music together for close to 20 years now, the childhood friends collaborating in bands around  the Blue Mountains since they were young teens. Hermitude as we know it now began life in 2000 and released their first EP through The Herd's Elefant Tracks label in 2002.

Speaking to theMusic.com.au after the announcement, they duo admitted it felt "pretty damn good" to be $30,000 richer all of a sudden. "We've won the music lotto or something."

“The last couple of years we've been following it [The Amp]… we weren't expecting to really be nominated,” Stuart said.

Dubber added, “I think what gave myself a little bit of hope was the way they judge it – as a full album – and the Amp crew are really about the whole experience of the record and we put a lot of love into the whole, and not just a single.”

HyperParadise, the duo's fourth LP, was released in February of last year and has been their best performing record thanks to the huge success one of its singles Speak Of The Devil and the band's hugely praised live show.

Tim Levinson - aka Urthboy - was a fellow shortlisted artist, but is also Hermitude's label head and 'manager'.

He told theMusic, "I'd actually thought about it for a moment before. If they won, as someone who was really involved with them, it would just be 100 percent joy. But because I am a fellow nominee, what would it be like? I can't answer that until it actually happens. And it has happened and I feel nothing less than 100 percent joy."

Deborah Conway, Daniel Glass, Hermitude, Scott B Murphy, Dan Rosen. Pic by Cole Bennetts

The duo following the announcement. Pic by Cole Bennetts

Glassnote Entertainment Group founder Daniel Glass gave a speech and held a Q&A session prior to the announcement this afternoon.

This year the award employed a different approach, as organisers dropped the entry fee, invited artists and music stakeholder to submit albums and slimmed the voting panel. 230 albums were identified from which a long list of over 60 was created. The final shortlist of nine was drip-fed in announcements, before the inaugural Amp Live event revealed the final five albums.

Past winners include:

2005: The Drones - Wait Long By The River And The Bodies of You Enemies Will Float By
2006: Augie March - Moo, You Bloody Choir
2007: The Mess Hall - Devils Elbow
2008: Eddy Current Suppression Ring - Primary Colours
2009: Lisa Mitchell - Wonder
2010: Cloud Control - Bliss Release
2011: The Jezabels - Prisoner