Release Date: 27 June 2011
Label: Badman Records
Packaging Type: Digipak
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 655037092728
Genres: Rock Alternative
Description
The members of the innocence mission have been band mates for a long time and friends for even longer. Guitarist Don Peris and bassist Mike Bitts met as cub scouts when they were seven years old and vocalist/pianist Karen (McCullough) met the pair during high school in their hometown of Lancaster, PA, when they all took part in the school production of "Godspell". Karen sang one line in the play and that’s where it all began. “Both boys”, Karen says, “were generally regarded as musical geniuses by their classmates”
Years later the group began to make recordings together, mostly from songs that Karen had written, and took the show on the road. They often drove in a packed station wagon to Philadelphia and New York. Soon Don and Karen were married. After making three albums with A&M Records, The Innocence Mission recorded Birds of My Neighborhood in 1999, which was self-produced and released on an independent label. This album, the band says, sounds like, and was, a new beginning for them.
NPR selected Befriended (2003) as one of the year's ten best albums.
In 2004 the band recorded Now the Day is Over, an album of standards and traditional songs sung as lullabies. We Walked in Song was released in 2007 to much fanfare and included the song "Brotherhood of Man", and garnered attention from Pitchfork and a variety of popular press outlets.
My Room in the Trees is the latest album from the innocence mission and a celebration of an everyday walk home from school, when "the clouds of Pennsylvania break apart".
The title is an extension of the album's lyrics, which often evoke feelings of solitude and images of the natural world.
The album was mostly recorded live in the Peris’ home and sonically, it is spacious and warmly grounded with upright bass, baritone and nylon string guitars and lit from above by electric guitar and piano.
Songs include the cinematic opening "Rain", "North American Field Song", and "The Happy Mondays" - a strange and beautiful song about searching for connectedness and shared experiences.
"Piano is a part of more of the songs this time and more songs were written on it. And then, the pump organ...” Karen says, "The one I have is a small, old field organ. For me, there is something very tangible and real about the sound of it, so it's hard to not want to put it on every song! And if I play a melodica along with it, it can sound like an accordion. So that's nice because I'm not very good at the accordion."
“Luxuriously hushed and as moving as a Nick Drake record sung by Joni Mitchell, My Room is another remarkable gem.” – The Big Takeover
Tracklisting
The Innocence Mission
The Innocence Mission
Mark Kozelek
The Builders And The Butchers
The Innocence Mission
Lovers
My Morning Jacket
The Innocence Mission
the innocence mission
The Innocence Mission
The Innocence Mission
The Innocence Mission
The Innocence Mission
