There are artists whose work is best understood through individual songs, and there are artists whose music makes more sense when you understand the journey behind it. Sister Speak belongs firmly in the latter category. The recording alias and musical project of Canadian-born songwriter, vocalist, and guitarist Sherri Anne, Sister Speak has developed across years of travel, collaboration, live performance, and an evolving relationship with the places Sherri Anne has called home. Her music moves comfortably through alternative folk, indie, blues, rock, reggae, and world influences without allowing any one genre to define it fully. At the center is something considerably more consistent: songwriting built around experience, reflection, connection, and the belief that music can carry meaning between people and places.
That makes Sister Speak particularly appropriate for The Maple City Journal's Vermont Artist Spotlight. Although Sherri Anne's musical story extends well beyond Vermont, the state has become a meaningful part of Sister Speak's continuing journey. Sister Speak has toured internationally and performed at venues including the Belly Up in San Diego and the Troubadour in Los Angeles, while sharing stages with artists from a wide range of musical traditions. More recently, Vermont has become part of the project's touring life as well. Sister Speak's 2026 Green Mountain Tour brought the music through Vermont as part of the touring cycle surrounding the Coming Home EP, further strengthening a relationship with the state and its listeners.
For Maple City Music, however, this spotlight has an additional significance. We recently had the opportunity to meet with Sherri Anne personally and bring a selection of Sister Speak's physical releases into Maple City Music. Those recordings are now available in our St. Albans store and through our website here: Sister Speak. That kind of direct relationship between artist, independent record store, and listener represents something we believe is increasingly important in music culture. A record store should certainly be a place where people buy music, but at its best it can also be a place where listeners discover the people and stories behind that music.
A Songwriter Without Artificial Boundaries
Sister Speak's catalog reflects an artist willing to move between musical environments rather than remain confined to a narrowly defined genre. Sherri Anne is the songwriter, vocalist, and guitarist at the center of the project, joined by different musicians throughout Sister Speak's touring and recording history. That flexibility has helped create a body of work incorporating acoustic songwriting alongside indie rock, blues, reggae, folk, and world-music influences. The result is not genre experimentation for its own sake. The different musical textures tend to serve the emotional character of the songs themselves.
That distinction matters when approaching Sister Speak as a listener and collector. Physical music encourages us to experience an artist beyond a single track selected by an algorithm. An album provides context. Sequencing matters. Artwork matters. Credits matter. Musicians, engineers, producers, studios, mastering decisions, and the physical presentation of a release become part of the listening experience. Sister Speak's catalog rewards that kind of attention because each release represents a different point in Sherri Anne's development as a songwriter and performer.
The most recent chapter is Coming Home, Sister Speak's fifth release and first intimate acoustic EP. Released in 2025, the project represents a deliberate return toward Sherri Anne's roots in British Columbia. It explores the idea of home through the perspective of someone who has spent significant portions of life traveling and making music in different places. The EP was created with award-winning Canadian engineers Elisa Pangsaeng and Erik Nielsen and also represents another artistic step for Sister Speak through "L’amour partout," a duet with Canadian artist Matt Stern that includes Sherri Anne singing almost entirely in French.
The concept of Coming Home is particularly compelling because "home" in an artist's life does not necessarily describe a single geographic location. It can mean origin, memory, belonging, relationships, or the places where an artist finds a community willing to listen. For a musician whose career has moved through British Columbia, California, Europe, Montreal, and increasingly Vermont, that idea carries considerable weight. It also allows listeners to hear a quieter and more intimate side of Sister Speak than some of the full-band recordings that preceded it.
From Love For All to the Belly Up
If Coming Home offers intimacy, Love For All demonstrates the broader musical vocabulary Sister Speak can bring to a full-length record. Released digitally in 2022 and subsequently issued on vinyl, the album incorporates alternative, folk, blues, and world influences around Sherri Anne's songwriting. The record features drummer Stephen Haaker, guitarist Sarven Manguiat, bassist Jacob Miranda Jr., and guest musicians including Bonnie Brooksbank, Aaron Durr, Jon Deas, and The Brothers Burns. The album was recorded primarily at Perfect Sound in Los Angeles, with its vinyl edition pressed as a 140-gram deluxe 12-inch record in Canada.
For vinyl collectors, Love For All is also a good example of how an independent artist can treat the physical edition as more than simply another delivery format. Its presentation incorporates artwork from Canadian artist Steve Chmilar, and Sherri Anne specifically sought a pressing produced using lead-free vinyl and non-toxic ink. Those details may exist outside the music itself, but they demonstrate the intentionality that can make independent physical releases especially interesting to collectors.
Then there is Live at the Belly Up, which captures a different and equally important side of Sister Speak: the live band. The recording comes from Sister Speak's The Stand EP record-release performance at the Belly Up in San Diego. The twelve-song release includes material drawn from the project's earlier catalog alongside newer tracks. It preserves the energy of a band performing in front of an audience rather than reconstructing that experience inside a studio. Alan Sanderson mixed the recordings, while Brian Lucey handled mastering. The vinyl edition was produced as a limited 140-gram 12-inch pressing.
Live records hold a distinctive place in vinyl collecting because they document something inherently temporary. A studio recording can be revisited, revised, overdubbed, and refined before release. A concert exists at a specific moment between performers and an audience. Once that moment passes, the recording becomes the artifact. Live at the Belly Up therefore offers more than another collection of Sister Speak songs; it preserves a particular night and a particular stage in the project's history.
Sister Speak Comes to Maple City Music
We are pleased to have added multiple Sister Speak releases to the Maple City Music collection following our recent meeting with Sherri Anne. The Coming Home EP is available on CD, Love For All on both CD and vinyl, and Live at the Belly Up on vinyl: Sister Speak.
For us, bringing these titles into the store is about considerably more than adding inventory. Independent record stores have always played an important role in connecting listeners with music that might otherwise remain outside the narrow channels of mass-market discovery. When we can meet an artist, understand the work, carry the physical releases, introduce those recordings to collectors, and eventually welcome that same artist into our space to perform, the relationship between artist, retailer, and listener becomes far more meaningful.
That is precisely what will happen this December when we welcome Sherri Anne back for Sister Speak playing The Nook at Maple City Music.
The Nook was created around the idea that music deserves a space for close listening and genuine connection. An intimate Sister Speak session fits that purpose exceptionally well. Rather than separating the person who writes the music from the physical recordings sitting on the shelf, an in-store performance brings those pieces together. Listeners can encounter the songwriter, hear the songs in the room, understand more about where the music came from, and then experience those same recordings at home.
Maple City Music will announce additional details about the December session as the event approaches.
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At Maple City Music, we are proud to help collectors discover, preserve, and enjoy the records that matter most.