2015: A Year’s Worth of Memories (Alisa Rodriguez)

by Steven Spoerl

apollo vermouth

Somewhere along one of 2015’s many digital roads I ran into Alisa Rodriguez. I don’t exactly recall how we first started talking but I do remember feeling a twinge of pride upon discovering that Rodriguez, the creative force behind Apollo Vermouth, was from Wisconsin. The music Rodriguez creates as Apollo Vermouth is deeply hypnotic and has the capacity to induce trance-like states of fugue. Here, Rodriguez celebrates the year a certain artist put together and singles out a record as a personal favorite. Find out more below.

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My favorite person of 2015 was Benoît Pioulard. He put out four releases and each of them mean a lot to me. Stanza was my favorite record of this year. He self released it on his bandcamp and each track is hauntingly beautiful. I met him once in Kansas City in a venue called Record Bar a few years ago. He was down to earth and played a very low-key set. He dedicated “A Coin on the Tongue” to me and it made my week. Subconsciously, he might be the reason why I didn’t do much with Apollo this year. I was too busy getting wrapped up in his music.

-Alisa Rodriguez