6 Music - Music News

2004's Mercury Prize winners Franz Ferdinand have told 6 Music that another album is in the making.

Frontman Alex Kapranos, who recently gave schoolchildren a lecture on songwriting, says he hasn’t stopped writing since the last record.

"I'm writing songs, I don’t know anyone who has a period of writing songs and promoting an album, if you write songs, you write songs and keep doing it," he said.

The band released their third studio album, Tonight: Franz Ferdinand, back in January 2009, which they had been recording in Glasgow since the summer of 2007.

Alex refused  to be drawn on when exactly the new record would come out but didn’t rule out a release in early 2011.

"I always talk before we do releases and talk about them too much, I get excited and I don't want to ruin the surprise, I'm going to shut up now!" he said.

Mercury Prize Tips

Having already been named the bookies favourite, Kapranos believes the safe bet for this year's prize is The xx for creating a "new trend" in music.

"I think they will probably win, and they should go to the pub.

"Occasionally you can have a prize winner that doesn’t connect with the public, as there isn't the songwriting in the band, and it's great that a band who don’t necessarily base their output on songs could win.

"I think that is a great thing to acknowledge - that there are other ways you can advance music."

The overall winner of the 2010 Prize will be decided and announced at the Barclaycard Mercury Prize Awards Show on Tuesday 7 September.