Wafty dream-pop with a sense of heritage and permanence from The Innocence Mission.

Release Date: 29th November 2024

Label: Bella Union

Format: CD / vinyl / digital

sounding like others, being themselves

The first hit this record imparts is a heady remembrance of Hope Sandoval and Mazzy Star, all lazy strums, languid picking and a voice, miked high and clear, filling the space available. So much so that a swift shufti needed, to make sure it actually wasn’t. It wasn’t, and isn’t, but this is what Innocence Mission do. And do so well. Earlier recordings have had them assume a 60’s folk-pop identity, with folk as in the transatlantic sense, so early Byrds, the Lovin’ Spoonful, Sonny & Cher, even, yet without ever losing that integral sense of self the band have in spades. Yup, it’s confusing, in that how can they sound just like others and yet be themselves? Walk with me…….

Karen Peris and Don Peris, husband and wife, formed the band, back in 1986, along with old school chum, Mike Bitts, on bass. Forgoing a drummer in 1996, the trio have pursued their singular streamlined muse over 12 previous full length releases, making it all the more astonishing they are so little known this side of the pond, the UK market usually a sponge for intelligent introspection. Their 2018 release, Sun On The Square did just about dent the UK indie chart, at 45. with it and follow-up, See You Tomorrow, both going top ten in the relatively rarified UK Americana chart. All but one the songs on this new record are by Karen, with her husband taking a share for one of them.

a warm glow

That first hit, as in the effect upon the listener, spreads like a warm glow throughout first track, This Thread Is A Green Street. (Whether an actual hit, as in the second single from the album, remains to be quantified). The song buoys along with a bouncy lilt, with what sounds like vibraphone adding extra hues beyond just guitars and voice. Peris’s voice, double tracked at times, has a gooey sustain that lingers favourably, a sound of nostalgia, for times and places forgotten. Midnight Swimmers then imparts a greater sense of nervous urgency, a bittersweetness moment that is almost Bacharachian in melody; the trebly nylon strung guitar motif imagines trumpet. A bit of fauxchestration then gilds it.

The Camera Divides The Coast Of Maine is a wordy title, and, if wordplay is a recurring feature of these songs, carefully too does it avoid the pretention that can often bring. The piano scaffold framing this song captures a Goffin-King pop sensibility that is enticing, a reminder of how robust those constructions actually were and are. The vibraphone is now more clearly the sound of high and clear plucked guitar notes. I like. John Williams follows down a similar route, the brittler aspects of Peris’s voice granting enough degree of separation to avoid overmuch comparison. There are some laidback brush strokes on drums for this one, adding an Eden period Everything But The Girl vibe.

acquired tastes

Rolling Piano is the main fingerprint for We Would Meet In Center City, and any earlier comparisons drop away, beckoning in others but mainly by cementing in their own idiosyncracy. A more complex mesh of sounds, it is as delectable as it disconcerting, possibly one of those acquired tastes your mother warned you about. Your Saturday Picture returns to the Eden ambience, albeit if with Tracy Thorn on helium. (Which is a better idea than it sounds.) The brass that enters midway is perfect. Cloud To Cloud is less grounded, imparting a floaty feel that the bass and drums can’t quite ground, even as brass and strings sweep in.

A Hundred Flowers starts with a flourish of picked guitars before piano endeavours to steer a different route, the contrasts almost hypnotic, that enhanced by a multi-tracked chorale. Sisters And Brothers, then, is a gentle thank you for siblingship. Here the bass of Bitts, stand-up on this track, is particularly welcome, his playing elsewhere generally unobtrusive, a skill forgotten by more players than those who retain and remember it.

core statements

This is followed by a song important to the husband and wife, Orange Of The Westering Sea, which, like the opener, is as clear an encapsulation of the core Innocence Mission statement you could want. Her voice wafts over a backbeat that sways in a drifty rhythm. “In plain sight the beauty of someone may emerge”, she sings, a reference to Joni Mitchell, a credited influence; Peris sang back-up vocals on Night Ride Home, Mitchell’s 1991 album, with Larry Klein, Mitchell’s then husband, producing a brace of early Innocence Mission albums for the band. If you can imagine Lana Del Rey tackling Mitchell, that is how the song emerges.

mellower steps

Needing a mellower step downwards to finish the album, the psychedelic baroque of A Different Day pulls down the blinds for another day, a beguiling close that has me wondering how a watery late summer sun can be evoked so strongly at this time of year. Which sort of sums up the whole record, a langourous and wistful recall of the last day of summer. And maybe that is what mid-winter swimmers have in their minds, as the water chills around them.

Here’s the opening track, This Thread Is A Green Street:

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