Sister. stepped in front of the LED wall at Baby’s All Right donning elf ears and football jerseys on Oct. 28, playing their new album in full to the quaint yet crowded room. Members Hannah Pruzinsky, Ceci Sturman and James Chrisman have spent a greater part of the past three years in closets and a cabin in upstate New York recording their debut album, “Abundance,” released on independent record label Mtn Laurel Recording Co.. “That was super amazing and exciting and unreal to us. Because our sophomore year of college, we went to Baby’s All Right and got our fake IDs taken from there because we were trying to see a show,” Sturman laughed as she told The Pace Press about the release show.
On “Abundance,” the trio takes advantage of their respected talents and their long-standing friendships, along with the world around them to deliver a meticulously raw record, described as “maximalist but homemade” on the band’s Bandcamp. Utilizing creaky floorboards and morning birds chirping along with unique instrumentals, Sister. delivers an ambitious and well-thought out indie record that circulates trust and the strong bond amongst friends every step of the way. “There were just so many afternoons in the summertime where we would just be in my bedroom, listening to these songs on repeat in their barest forms, laying down on my bed and Ceci’d be like, ‘What if there was a harp there?’, ‘I love those flute sounds, like, what if they were more distorted?’ Any kind of desire that we had, we kind of followed it,” Pruzinsky described the band’s “sky’s the limit” approach to their homey sound.
The opening track, “Ghost,” is an intimate song written by Sturman about her and her mother that she shared with the other members originally as a voice memo while Chrisman added a guitar riff and sparkly synth line towards the ending. Sturman’s vulnerability is on full display on the track and the naturalistic sounds added in makes the experience of listening to “Abundance” so much more personal and comforting. For Pruzinsky and Sturman, the founding members of Sister. who met their freshman year of college at St. John’s University, that vulnerability and openness with one another was the driving force behind creating the album. “I feel so lucky to really trust Hannah and James’s instincts and just to be like, ‘They’re understanding how I’m feeling, I’m understanding how they’re feeling,’ and we all are bringing the same message together,” Sturman said.
When asked about living and creating music in New York City, Strutman told The Pace Press, “I feel like living in New York has been so integral to every part of me. Like any part of creativity is influenced by my environment. I think, like, basically leaving home at 18 and going into college in New York City, it kind of immediately thrust us into an extreme, independent, creative environment that was just constantly inspiring.”
“I didn’t go to college for any sort of creative endeavor. And I feel like the fact that I was able to come here to college feels like the only way that maybe I would have been able to find that again, or feel like allowed to create so openly in so many different ways outside of music, too. I feel lucky,” Pruzinsky said thoughtfully.
Sister.’s honesty in their lyrics throughout the album help the listener feel connected to the performers with tracks like “Notes App Apology” and “Classon” being these earnest tracks about love coated in beautiful harmonies from the band. On “Classon,” Pruzinsky sings, “If your heart is hardly scattered/I’ll pick the pieces up that much more,” as Sturman mirrors that primal desire to take care of someone you love so deeply and fully. The track is infused with tight guitar riffs and a chunky 8-bit inspired synth to add color to a song that is so interpersonal.
Sturman described the writing process for tracks like “Kinder,” “Desire” and “Guts,” which were all co-written by the group members, “I think of me and Hannah and James, sitting in our music room in a circle, and being like, ‘Okay, we’re envisioning a scene where two people that are kind of crushing, or someone’s crushing on someone else. They’re nervous. It’s not ultimately ending in anything, like, successful, but the anticipation and the desire is so palpable.’ And, like, we also wanted to make it kind of cheeky, and so it was just fun to be like, ‘What about the word, like, ‘jittery?’” She spoke about the process of creating “Guts.” Sister.’s ability to imagine a story together and build off of one another leads to something so cohesive and so rare as these three friends were able to build an entire world together for their songs.
“That’s what I love about the three of us. We’re all willing to follow each other’s whims,” Pruzinsky added.
“Gorilla vs Cold Water,” similarly to the opening track, is built on an already existing idea from Sturman. “It’s a song that I wrote when I was taking a fiction workshop, and I was just thinking about something apocalyptic and weird. And ultimately, it’s about romance in the context of, like, 1800s sailors or something like that,” she chuckled at the explanation. The trust between the three friends is what brings a song with a concept like “Gorilla vs Cold Water” to life in such a beautiful way as Pruzinsky harmonizes with their friend, and Chrisman adds these unique string sounds to fully humanize the track.
While creating “Abundance,” Sister. wasn’t focused on the cohesion of the nine tracks but rather approaching the songs individually and “taking each song to the fullest,” as described by Pruzinsky. That theme and the amount of love for each other and the music itself makes “Abundance” coherent in full. The longstanding friendship between Hannah Pruzinsky and Ceci Sturman, along with the seamlessly included music of James Chrisman, is front and center every moment of the 38-minute record.
When asked what’s next for Sister., Sturman mentioned how it’s nice to rest with the album out for a second but can’t wait to continue making music, touring and working within the music scene. The pair discussed Gunk-a show paper they’re designing to promote and discuss shows in the area and publish friends and other artists’ proses and other writings. Through Gunk, the duo plans to release a compilation album that includes other artists to raise money for Palestinians in Gaza.
“There’s always stuff [going on] in the Sister. Extended Universe,” Sturman jokes.
Album rating: 8/10
Sister. will be playing an unplugged set at the Stone Circle Theatre on Nov. 17, and Hannah Pruzinsky will be doing a solo show at Purgatory on Dec. 18.
