Description
The Old Century is the fourth solo album by the American singer and songwriter Don Peris of The Innocence Mission, released on Jemez Mountain in 2013, an instrumental sub-label of San Francisco’s Badman Recording Co. This instrumental album was recorded by Don Peris in his home studio in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. All songs written by Don Peris.
Don Peris provides most of the album’s instrumentation playing guitar, ukulele, cello, organ, and drums. Track 4 features Karen Peris on accordion. Viola and violin on tracks 4 and 11 provided by Anna and Drew Peris, respectively.
Don Peris is the long-time guitarist for the innocence mission. His newest release, The Old Century, is a tranquil, melodic, heartfelt collection of songs without words, composed for guitar, and beautifully recorded in his home studio in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
On The Old Century, Don shows a great regard for melody and the structure of song. Through music, Peris finds he can speak what he can not find in words to say. Books and musical influences often come together in strange and beautiful ways. The song Concertina, for example, leads one to think of Edison, Menlo Park, the World’s Fair, a string of light bulbs, Niagara, a wagon of rain. “While I was writing one of the songs for this collection, I came upon a passage in a book I was reading, describing New York City on a golden Autumn afternoon as being ‘bathed in the light of the previous century’. That phrase seemed to resonate with the sounds I was hearing, ” says Peris.
Like most people, his musical tastes span a wide landscape. However, David Mansfield’s Heaven’s Gate, the works of Nick Drake, Karen Peris (the innocence mission), Mark Kozelek (Sun Kil Moon and Red House Painters), the John Williams recordings of Barrios, Tom Waits, Radiohead are much-loved standbys.
“I studied classical guitar in college and have spent the subsequent years enamored with the poetic voice of this humble instrument. I also love the atmospheric tone that can be created by the electric guitar. I use a 1954 Gretsch Electromatic hollow-body, a Gretsch 6120, a numerous assortment of 60’s Guild nylon-stringed guitars, my 70’s Guild D44 steel string, a noisy Princeton Reverb amp and a recycled 3/4 size student cello.”
Don Peris’s spiritual roots are expressed through his instrumentals. “While music conveys so many emotions and flashes so many images, I am most taken by it’s ability to hint at the beauty of Creation and to reach the goodness that is in all,” remarks Peris.
“The music is by turns melancholic, nostalgic, elegiac, and hopeful, but always remains inviting thanks to the rich and warm sound of the guitars and his fine melodic instincts.” – Stationary Travels
> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/the-old-century/633114800)
CD tracklist:
01. ElectroStar
02. The Old Century
03. PennyLand
04. Concertina
05. Palos Verdes
06. Catalonia
07. Flight
08. History in G Minor
09. Holiday Beach
10. Speedwell Forge
11. Marisol
12. Operadio
13. Swansea
14. Ranger
15. Bicycling
Note: CD housed in a Digipak. Available at Bandcamp: https://theinnocencemission.bandcamp.com/album/the-old-century
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