Karen and Don Peris met in a 1980 Catholic-school production of Godspell and later married. They lead this Lancaster, Pennsylvania trio with bassist Mike Bitts. Thirteen studio albums, moving from ’80s alt-pop toward the hushed, intimate dream-folk of Small Planes (2001, What Are Records?). NASA picked their earlier song “Bright as Yellow” as a real astronaut wake-up call aboard Space Shuttle mission STS-124 in 2008. A rare honor for a band this unassuming. Their thirteenth album, Midwinter Swimmers, came out in 2024.
From the notes for Episode 03 · fact-checked Oct 4, 2026.
