Karen Peris

The music of Innocence Mission has been part of the soundtrack of my life since I was 20 years old. When I was in college, looking for well-crafted, artistic music made by followers of Jesus, I discovered their first EP. Since they were based in Lancaster and played many local shows, several friends of mine would go and listen to them. Once their first major recording, a self-titled album, came out, I was hooked. Karen Peris, singer, song writer, and player of various instruments, captured my heart as she shared hers through her poetic words. Also I just love the sounds of their song—the guitar work of Don Paris, and the bass playing of Mike Bitts.

Karen has made her own recording and the song “I Would Sing Along” will be played often around here. The video of the song is delightful, as it features Karen’s illustrations.

Here is what Innocence Mission website says about this new work of Karen’s: “Karen’s album A Song Is Way Above the Lawn will be released soon, on Bella Union and on Umbrella Day. The animated video that Karen made for I Would Sing Along can be seen below. To hear the song, find more information, or to pre-order the album, please visit our Bandcamp page, or the Bella Union shop. On October 8, the album will also be available in stores, in North America on Umbrella Day, and in the rest of the world on Bella Union.

“I Would Sing Along, from the album A Song Is Way Above the Lawn. (I heard a great interview with an acoustic biologist, relating that elephants do a kind of singing, almost subsonically, but if she listened very closely she could hear it. So this song was a sort of imagining about that idea.). With love and thanks to Don for fantastic drumming, and to Drew and Anna for adding such life and beauty with their violin and viola playing. In answer to some questions, I wanted to explain that I always hope an album could be for any age, and with this I had a particular added hope that a child could find something in it that felt companionable, but that musically, this album has a lot in common with our band albums and with my album called Violet, except all the songs on the new album have words and singing.- Karen”