This year we’re going full Aquarium Drunkard (AKA the only music year end list worth reading). Except, these are just one person’s choices (unlike Bolachas Now Playing, which is a team effort). And he’s only doing this because it’s a slow week at his real work. Meaning, “going full Aquarium Drunkard” is, really, just adopting the format: a list of 100 un-ordered records bound together in groups of 4. Plus a short tweet about each of them. There are a few Spotify playlists at the end of the post, plus Bandcamp links to those records whenever available.
Other than a vague idea of how her debut album sounded like, we knew almost nothing about Jess Williamson the moment we walked into the dark backroom of a Nijmegen venue to listen to her songs. Or at least try to, as the audience seemed to be more interested in catching up with their buddies before Kevin Morby took the stage. That being said, our most vivid image of that night is staring at the stage as Williamson played the broodingly gorgeous “Heart Song” off her forthcoming album. We had to go up and tell her we could get her to play a few shows back in Portugal. That never happened, but 100% of her future albums ended up being featured here. Of course they were. “Sorcerer” is the latest instalment in a perfect streak of stellar records. It’s out now.