"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"
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: The Innocence Mission (A&M 1989), Umbrella (A&M 1991), Glow (A&M 1995), and Birds Of My Neighborhood (RCA 1999). 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.
Previous Praise For the innocence mission:
"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)
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