The London Awards for Art and Performance is the country's most expansive awards and recognises artists and performers across many art-forms. Each is presented to an individual or team who have made an outstanding contribution to their art form.

Who better than the nominees themselves to judge each category. We'll be asking nominees in each of the categories to pick their top artist/s and from that we'll arrive at the shortlist and award winner who will receive the trophy. The shortlist and winner will be announced at the Presentation Ceremony in June.

There will also be a public vote, where anyone can vote online. However, this will only be taken into account if there's a tie in the nominee votes.

Long list in competition (click on title for more) - nominations: 17

London Music Award Nomination Emmy the Great: 'On the one hand sweeping and allusive, on the other breathtakingly intimate and personal, Emmy the Great’s album Virtue is a dense accomplished set of songs brought on by the disintegration of the singer’s engagement. Amid the swirling Paper Forest she sings the words ‘I’m blessed’ with heartbreaking clarity; a kind of awestruck self-belief. Her delivery anchors the whole affair, assuming an emotional weight only glimpsed at previously . . . an extraordinarily confident work, shaped by confusion and turmoil.'

Chris Brocklebank · Facebook · Twitter · Email · Feb 17

London Music Award Nomination Django Django: 'It’s a dream of the psychedelic tropics, a heady explosion of colours, an album that takes what it means to be ‘in an indie band’ and gives it a good shake. Time to pay a visit.'

Chris Brocklebank · Facebook · Twitter · Email · Feb 14

London Music Award Nomination Pulled Apart by Horses: '[on new album] Tough Love is everything that you adored about Pulled Apart By Horses the first time around - but better... There’s a bit more going on between Tough Love’s tinnitus-riddled ears, and as a result it feels like a far more significant and complete work than its predecessor.'

Venetia Twigg · Facebook · Twitter · Email · Feb 01

London Music Award Nomination The Ting Tings: 'They wrote enjoyable new-album tracks like ‘Guggenheim’, first schemed up by White, they say, when she was pissed in the back of a taxi in Ibiza. The result is the intriguing mix of Sounds from Nowheresville; capricious switches between ups and downs, chart-friendly pop and clubbier stuff...'

Venetia Twigg · Facebook · Twitter · Email · Feb 01

London Music Award nomination Michael Kiwanuka: ‘The 24-year-old sounds like the sort of classic soul man who emerged from the US in the late 1960s or 1970s – specifically Otis Redding or Bill Withers. Yet Kiwanuka's stark and haunting music is more stripped down…his vocal cords were made to sing soul.’

Shadi Hamta · Facebook · Twitter · Email · Jan 09

London Music Award Nomination Ben Howard: ‘...he doesn't just sell out shows (here and in Europe), he performs to a religiously devoted following in rapture to his every strum. They're less like gigs, more like prayer meetings’.

Alice Stride · Facebook · Twitter · Email · Dec 22

London Music Award Nomination Delilah: '.. probably the most exciting, soon-to-be-on-every-radio-station star that you’ve never heard of. … Talented, beautiful and tenacious, 2012 sees her embark on the first of three UK tours to bring her unique, smoky voice and bittersweet, dramatic songs to the masses.'

Alice Stride · Facebook · Twitter · Email · Dec 22

London Music Award nomination Kate Bush: '.. an LP that finds a universe of emotions.' [Rolling Stone on 50 Words for Snow]

Venetia Twigg · Facebook · Twitter · Email · Nov 24

London Music Award nomination The Good, The Bad and the Queen: '.. the band’s poised Anglocentric folk and reggae-tinged rock offered a marvellous spectacle.'

Venetia Twigg · Facebook · Twitter · Email · Nov 15

London Music award nomination Arctic Monkeys : '.. going from rollicking youthful indie to experimental pop and raucous Stateside-influenced stoner rock.'

Chris Brocklebank · Facebook · Twitter · Email · Nov 02

London Music Award nomination PJ Harvey : '.. war and battle and the idea of England “bleeding out into the world”. It’s a country she describes to us through imagery invoking toil, blood, battle and pride.'

Chris Brocklebank · Facebook · Twitter · Email · Nov 02

London Music Award Nomination Katy Carr: '[on album Coquette] .. proclaimed no less than “a masterpiece” by Music Critic, wove the wrench and reality of loss, battle and bloodshed with the slow-burn of feverish eroticism and the heady bloom of romance in a dark time.'

Chris Brocklebank · Facebook · Twitter · Email · Oct 27

London Music Award Nomination The Jim Jones Revue: “[Our lyrics are] anything but pink Cadillacs and bobby socks. They’re dirty red buses and difficult women in Lower Clapton.”

Chris Brocklebank · Facebook · Twitter · Email · Oct 27

London Music Award Nomination Metronomy: 'Audience were dancing like loons as the lightshow beams cut through the vast space, whether to the doomy chill of She Wants or the pulsing bass of The Bay.'

Chris Brocklebank · Facebook · Twitter · Email · Oct 11

London Music Award nomination Ed Sheeran: '.. his encore is an act of extraordinary courage. He leaves the stage and makes his way through the crowd to stand on a chair in the middle of the floor, sans guitar lead, sans mic. After an aeon of shouting and shushing, silence eventually descends and the traditional Irish drinking tune The Parting Glass floats quietly to the Scala's walls. ... It's a stunning end to a solid show.'

Facebook · Twitter · Email · Aug 20

London Music Award nomination The Unthanks: 'Their voices are appreciably different – Becky’s is purer and more powerful, Rachel’s more playful and expressive – but when combined on songs like Nobody Knew She Was There, they effectively become one seamless entity, such is the spine-tingling perfection of their harmonising.'

Facebook · Twitter · Email · Aug 20

London Music Award nomination Laura Marling: '.. an electrifying performer. Midway through the set, her band exit the stage and she sings "Night After Night", one of the forthcoming album's highlights, with an intensity that leaves the room breathless.'

Facebook · Twitter · Email · Jul 31