Search - Boister :: Sister City

"Boister's Sister City captures so much of what I enjoyed about (their live shows): great vocals, unique instrumentation, and a gamut of styles that seem endless. A few lines into ?Demons Come,? Sister City 's opening track, you'd swear you were listening to Chrissie Hynde or Lucinda Williams. But quickly you'll come to the realization that the music Boister plays is radically different from either of these relatively accessible singers, not to mention most of the music you've probably heard before. Sometimes the music changes completely within a single song. ?Letters Underwater? starts off slow and beautiful like Hejira -era Joni Mitchell before the drums charge in, speeding up the tempo and changing the song entirely. By the time Watts enters with her vocals, we're at CBGBs or something! This album may be all over the place, but it's all in a very good way. While Watts' voice is central to much of Sister City , some of the best tracks on the album are instrumentals. This isn't too much of a surprise, since original film scoring for silent movies is on Boister's resume. Instrumentally the album is loaded with instruments that are underutilized in modern music: the accordion, the clarinet, and the trombone to name a select few. Sister City is a bit overwhelming simply because ? at an eighteen track album spilled onto two discs ? there is so much to absorb, all of it quite different from anything else you've probably heard before.. but eventually the whole thing will grab you. It took me I don't know how many times of listening to it front to back to write this review, and I'm still figuring some of it out. Is that not a sign of a worthwhile album or what?" Adam Miller, Being There Magazine, Toronto