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Talking about the Innocence Mission always makes me very happy. It is a group that I love and have been following for twenty years now, since I discovered Karen's splendid voice in the two features of Natalie Merchant's Ophelia album.
The Innocence Mission is a family-run band formed by Karen and Don Peris. They are from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and were discovered in the late '80s by none other than Joni Mitchell, who subsequently entrusted the artistic direction to her husband Larry Klein.
The band's first two records, produced by Klein, are not, however, striking. You have to wait for "Glow" from ’95 for the process of musical subtraction that has led them to the current "Sun on the Square," which I want to talk about today, to start.
The musical offering of the Innocence Mission is a minimal folk colored here and there with some strings (played by their two teenage children Anna and Drew), recorded at home, entirely written by Karen and arranged by Don. To this musical solution, you must add Karen's writing, capable of absolutely extraordinary lyrical depth that, even in this album, continues to move with incisiveness, despite the range of words always being very simple and immediate.
For example, the title track:
Sun on the square.
My brother there
walks along and will not fall,
he will not fall.
Light on the faces,
light on the buildings,
one and all,
he will not fall,
he will not fall.
The possible noon hour, the bells,
the lemon-colored clang on the rooftops,
footsteps in the sun.
Let it ring out into the air-
let there be more kindness in the world.
And he may be the one,
he may be the one.
It is impossible not to recognize the expressive power of these few lines; how a great sense of hope and emotion is created around the words and notes.
Karen through her voice and Don with his always gentle guitar touch are excellent at bringing you into their world and creating a deep sense of empathy.
The record is full of such scenes. Sun on the Square is an album that looks outward: at the trees, the houses, the people and meanwhile tells you: we can do it! It is a record full of themes that I felt the need for.
This time they have also caught the interest of Simon Raymonde's Bella Union (Cocteau Twins), which distributes them in Europe. There will be no tours, Karen and Don do not like to be away from family.
Discover them in their most beautiful records: "Birds of My Neighborhood", "My Room in the Trees", "Hello I Feel the Same".
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