Latest album - Midwinter Swimmers sounds like a forgotten album from the ’60s or ’70s—a Vashti Bunyan and Paul Simon collaboration…with all the hope, promise, and desire records of that era tend to hold. This is what “beautiful” was meant to describe. - Pitchfork
For listeners of the innocence mission, the Lancaster, Pennsylvania trio are beyond a favourite band, more like a beloved companion, such is their intensity and fragility of their sound and vision, spearheaded by Karen Peris’ beautiful songwriting and heartbreaking, breathtaking voice. Those fans include Sufjan Stevens and Sam Beam (Iron & Wine), who have both covered innocence mission songs, and in whose company the trio deserve to be bracketed.
Today the band consists of Karen Peris (guitars, piano, pump organ, accordion, voice), husband Don (guitars, drums, voice) and Mike Bitts (upright bass) bringing together an orchestral, at times cinematic, folk pop sound, a sound rich in atmosphere, innately sad, but ultimately hopeful.
Sufjan Stevens calls the innocence mission “moving and profound”, adding, “What makes Karen Peris’ lyrics so remarkable is the economy of words, sensory language, concrete nouns – everyday objects take on tremendous meaning.” Images of nature, colour, weather, and season are continued throughout the album. “For me it’s helpful to be able to see the song, if I can” Karen says.
Of the music they listen to, long-cherished albums like Pink Moon, Astral Weeks, After the Goldrush and Bridge Over Troubled Water playing alongside Talk Talk’s final record Laughing Stock, Camera Obscura’s first, Biggest Bluest Hi Fi, and Yann Tiersen’s Amelie soundtrack, are a few that Don and Karen mention as favourites, immediately adding that this list leaves out a great deal.
To best capture their intimate sound, the band have recorded every album from Birds Of My Neighborhood onward in various rooms of the Peris home, like the dining room where the piano sits. On Sun On The Square, their teenage son and daughter are guests, adding violin and viola, respectively.
Prepare to have your heart broken and your breath taken. Tears will fall. You have been warned.