The Last Dinner Party: The album deals with a lot of key themes, including the repression of sexuality and the exploration of that through Catholicism

The Last Dinner Party spoke to the official Mercury Prize channel about the making of their album 'Prelude To Ecstasy' and what it means to be one of the 12 Albums of The Year. Last week it was announced that The ‘Mercury Prize 2024: Album of the Year’ TV programme will be filmed and broadcast live from Abbey Road Studios on Thursday, 5 September 2024 on BBC Four (8pm-9.15pm).

All the artists who have produced the 12 Albums of the Year have been invited to Abbey Road Studios. The overall winner of the 2024 Mercury Prize will be announced live at around 9pm. This year’s Awards Show will see artists come together to watch each other’s recent recorded performances from across the BBC and celebrate each other’s work.

The Last Dinner Party says:

[Themes within the album]
“The album itself is not a story but it definitely contends with a lot of key themes, including the repression of sexuality and the exploration of that through Catholicism. It deals with queer identity, it deals with heartbreak, euphoria, yearning, passion, basically just all of the emotions one can have and feeling them out to their deepest extreme.”

[Working with James Ford on the record]
“So we were very lucky to work with a producer, a very famous producer, James Ford, who's worked on many records that we admire, like Lungs by Florence and The Machine, he worked with the Arctic Monkeys. So it’s quite intimidating at first, but he was great to work with.”