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The Innocence Mission
Location: Lancaster, PA
Genre: Indie Folk
"I hope you are on your rooftop now, in the
sun, in the middle of five hundred flowers, and a
warm wind blows your scarf straight out, flying like
a flag." Karen Peris / rooftop
Keren
Peris promotional photo.
The Innocence Mission are:
Don Peris
Mike Bitts
Karen Peris
Steve Brown
The Innocence Mission began as four friends who met
during a Catholic high school production of the musical
Godspell. Since 1989, they have released four critically
acclaimed albums. Through recordings and numerous
tours, (on their own and with Natalie Merchant, EmmyLou
Harris, 16
Horsepower) they have remained friends.
Small Planes, their fifth full-length release, spans
the years between 1996 and 2001, and combines new
recordings with others rediscovered from the band's
large, post-Glow studio archive. The result is a moving
collection of eleven songs whose heartbreaking beauty
is both strange and familiar. Karen Peris' haunting,
transcendently lovely voice communicates with immediacy
and directness, speaking to our common sorrows and
joys, speaking of everyday miracles. "It's true
that there is a lot of longing in these songs,"
she says. " Longing to cross the distances to
other people, longing to stop letting good intentions
go nowhere, longing to have a child. But there are
also celebrations of friendships, of the brotherhood
of man."
"Oh my brothers and sisters, he is so kind,
despite the losses that have made us this sad. Five
blocks of sidewalk chalk he steers us clear of. Blue
ice skaters and animals." Karen Peris / migration
"My friend is starting over. There is a trembling.
Today, today is trembling through the trees."
Karen Peris / today
"I want to be like Sister Veronica, whose life
connects with so many lives." Karen Peris / small
planes
Musically, Small Planes reflects old and new influences,
owing as much to the Chicago-based Palace Music and
to Tom Waits' Bone Machine as it does to their beloved
Neil Young and Simon and Garfunkel records. As on
Birds of My Neighborhood and Glow there is the wonderful
marriage of Don's gorgeously warm and shimmering electric
guitars with Karen's folky acoustic guitar strumming
and spare piano melodies. But here, in songs like
"Rooftop" and "Today", there is
a new intensity to the playing of the four friends,
and moments when drums, bass, guitars and piano soar
with joyful abandon.
"…a knack for harmony, and melodies that
remind you of Simon and Garfunkel. (Karen Peris is)
blessed with the most hauntingly beautiful voice this
side of the late British alto Sandy Denny. Far from
an innocent, Peris seems a veteran of torment who
came to joy through wisdom. The band's glorious music
finds a wonderful way to share it." - New York
Daily News
"The Innocence Mission remain a needle in a
haystack, a mother lode of musical gold in the mountain
range of modern pop music. Somehow, even when they're
suffering and struggling with doubt, The Innocence
Mission are still a source of comfort and encouragement."
- Green Lake Reflections
"…the lyrics read like fine, wholly comprehensible
Romantic poetry. For anyone in need of respite from
Madonna's Catholic guilt, The Innocence Mission offers
the rarer, intriguing tonic of Catholic joy."
- Los Angeles Times
"Of all the new singer-songwriters, Karen Peris
is the most interesting to me." - Joni Mitchell
"O sweet melancholy, stripped of all finery.
I will listen to The Innocence Mission and feel a
warm hand on my soul. I can weep." Bottomline
/ Holland
"Karen, blessed with tremendous melodic gifts
and a talent for evocative lyrics that are elliptical
but meaningful, writes emotionally complex songs that
walk a delicate line between melancholy and joy. To
borrow two phrases from a Joni-Mitchell song, she
captures, "the hope and the hopelessness"
and the "comfort in melancholy" with disarming
dexterity." - Lancaster Intelligencer Journal |
