Album: The Innocence Mission - Midwinter Swimmers

A sycamore tree is described to an appaloosa horse before it is mounted to ride off to visit a friend. The thread used for sewing evokes a map where each street has a doorway which, once opened, reveals memories of those who are missed.

Midwinter Swimmers is the musical analogue of Monet’s Nymphéas (Water Lilies) series of paintings, where the familiar is depicted in a way which brings new meaning. Imagery where detail which might be missed brings a fresh understanding of a recognisable setting, and where connections are made between the everyday and the imagined. Or, as The Innocence Mission’s Karen Peris puts it, there is a “transportive quality of scenes we might come upon in the natural world, or even in everyday objects.”

While the 13th studio album from Pennsylvania’s The Innocence Mission is about reflections inspired by the day-to-day, it also contemplates the past – when Karen and Don Peris recorded their first couple of albums at Joni Mitchell’s house.

Made with bassist, friend and long-time collaborator Mike Bitts, the evocative Midwinter Swimmers shimmers like heat haze or the surface of a becalmed lagoon. Predominantly acoustic – the subtle strings sound as if a Mellotron has been used – the 11 songs nod to bossa nova, the exacting sonic architecture of The Roches and the spaciness of Judy Henske’s recordings with Jerry Yester. The Marine Girls were they channelling Mazzy Star maybe. Peris’ fragile-seeming voice is always foregrounded. Yet, whatever the foundations which may or may not be present, The Innocence Mission sound like The Innocence Mission.

Where Midwinter Swimmers differs from its predecessor, 2020’s See You Tomorrow, and, indeed, previous Innocence Mission albums is in its more assured rapport between the solidity of the songs themselves and delicacy with which they are delivered. So remarkable a balance is rarely struck.

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