The xx win 2010 Mercury Prize

The xx have landed this year’s Mercury Prize, beating off competition from Paul Weller, Dizzee Rascal and Foals to win the £20,000 prize.

The South London trio’s 2009 debut was hailed as a masterpiece, aptly described by The Guardian as a “sonic landscape in which every note mattered, every pause meant something and every half-whisper had enough emotional impact to knock down skyscrapers”.

Accepting the award last night, the band’s frontman Oliver Sim said: “I don’t know what we were expecting but we weren’t expecting this.”

“We’ve had the most incredible year and it has just felt like every day we’ve just woken up to something incredible we just weren’t expecting,” he added.

Previous winners have included Elbow, Arctic Monkeys, Klaxons and, erm, Speech Debelle.

The full list of this years nominees was as follows:

Dizzee Rascal – Tongue N’ Cheek
The xx – xx
Paul Weller – Wake Up the Nation
Corinne Bailey Rae – The Sea
Mumford and Sons – Sigh No More
Laura Marling – I Speak Because I Can
Foals – Total Life Forever
Wild Beasts – Two Dancers
Biffy Clyro – Only Revolutions
Villagers – Becoming a Jackal
Kit Downes Trio – Golden
I Am Kloot – Sky at Night