The Innocence Mission (stylised in lower-case on
all releases since 1995) is an American band centered on
husband-and-wife songwriters Karen and
Don
Peris.
The original group, including Mike Bitts
(bass) and Steve Brown (drums), was formed in Lancaster
, Pennsylvania
in the early 1980s when the members met during a
Catholic school production of Godspell. Although all members of the band
have contributed musically, Karen Peris is its principal
writer.
History
Their
self-titled
début album, released in 1989 on
A&M
Records, was produced by
Larry
Klein, then-husband of
Joni
Mitchell, and recorded in the couple's Los Angeles recording
studio. The album spent 10 weeks on the
Billboard charts, peaking at #167 in
1990, with the album's lead single "Black Wall Sheep" peaking at
#22 on Billboard's
Modern Rock
Tracks chart. Klein also produced their 1991 follow up,
Umbrella.
Their third and final A&M album,
Glow (1995), was produced
by
Dennis Herring, who had previously
produced two records for
Camper Van
Beethoven. This album is a departure from Klein's heavier
production style. Whereas the first two releases may have brought
to mind
The Sundays and
10,000 Maniacs with their moody keyboards and
layered sound, Herring's lighter touch gave more emphasis to the
group's guitar work and to Karen's vocals and lyrics. Glow contains
songs that appear on the soundtracks of the films
Empire Records and
Dream for an Insomniac, as well as
the television series
Party of Five.
The album's second track,
Bright As Yellow, peaked at #33
on Billboard’s Modern Rock Tracks and also reached #17 on the
Bubbling Under Hot 100
Singles chart, which would be the equivalent of #117 on the
main
Hot 100 chart. While in the process of
recording a follow-up to
Glow, A&M Records was bought
by
Universal Music Group. The
group decided to mutually part ways with A&M, just before it
was merged with other companies to form
Interscope-Geffen-A&M. The
album recorded during this period remains unreleased.
In 1999 the band signed to a new label, Kneeling Elephant, a
sub-label of
RCA Records. Additionally,
drummer Steve Brown left the band to pursue a career as a chef.
With the exception of his sole contribution - drums and brushes on
"Snow" - the subsequent album,
Birds of My Neighborhood, is
largely bereft of drums. Don Peris took up percussional duties on
"Birdless" and the closing moments of his self-penned "Green Grass,
Red Tree," but otherwise the group adapted to its new trio status
by replacing Mike Bitt's electric bass with an upright bass and
taking on a more acoustic, folk-based sound. The album was followed
by the release of
The Lakes of
Canada EP - which contains their one and only remix thus far, a
remix of "Snow" by Icelandic electronic group
GusGus.
The 2000 release
Christ Is My
Hope, featuring folk songs and hymns that had inspired them
over the years, was independently distributed by their own label,
LAMP, with all proceeds from sales of the record being donated to
hunger relief charities. An exclusive one-album deal signed with
independent label
WhatAreRecords? saw
Small Planes following a year later. The album,
which consisted of unreleased recordings made between 1996-2001,
contained one song (the title track) from the unreleased album
recorded for A&M in 1996.
Their first album on Badman Records in the US and Agenda in Europe,
Befriended, was released in 2003 and was
followed a year later by a collection of lullabies, standards,
traditional and classical songs called
Now the Day Is Over. Recorded in a
number of weeks in August 2004, the album contained one original
song, as well as their well-known cover of
Henry Mancini's "
Moon
River." Badman Records acquired license to re-master and
re-issue the then-out-of-print
Birds of My Neighborhood album in
2006. Their most recent studio album
We Walked in Song was released in
2007.
An EP entitled
Street Map was released in
December 2008 and is the second record to be distributed
independently on their own LAMP label. The seven new songs,
recorded in 2008, were originally intended to preview and feature
on their next studio album, but a recent update to their website
has revealed that after further recording, the next album "has
turned out to be a mostly new group of songs," and that with the
exception of one song (thought to be "Pioneering"), all songs found
on Street Map are sure to remain exclusive to the EP. Their next
studio album is expected at the beginning of 2010.
Don Peris has recorded three solo albums, Ten Silver Slide
Trombones in 2001, the mostly instrumental Go When the Morning
Shineth in 2006, which features a vocal contribution from Karen
Peris on "North Atlantic Sand," and an instrumental solo guitar
Christmas album, Brighter Visions Beam Afar, which was released in
2007.
Most recently, their out-of-print
self-titled début album, as
well as
Birds of My
Neighborhood, have been digitally re-released on places such as
Amazon, iTunes and e-Music.
Discography
Albums
EPs
Singles
- 1989: "Black Sheep Wall" (#22 on US Modern Rock Tracks chart).
- 1989: "I Remember Me"
- 1989: "Wonder of Birds"
- 1991: "And Hiding Away"
- 1991: "Sorry and Glad Together"
- 1995: "Bright as Yellow" (#33 on US Modern Rock Tracks
chart).
- 1995: "Keeping Awake"
- 1996: "Everything's Different Now"
- 2001: "Today"
- 2004: "One for Sorrow, Two for Joy"
- 2007: "Song from Holland" (available on iTunes)
External links
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