Will You Find Me

Heart Like a River	The Braille Night When Ida's I Know About You was released, you could mentally cross Rainer Maria with Low and have a reasonable approximation of the band's emphatic, unpredictable sound. They were angry young music geeks, down and out and unafraid of expressing punk sentiments in an intricate ...	Lovers Prayers Their first new album in three years and their clearest, most dynamic to date. A collection of songs that invoke the proximity of the invisible and the reality of love with an earned grace that comes from experience, persistence, and an undiminished enthusiasm for making sounds t...	Shhh	Tales of Brave Ida
You Are My Sunshine Elizabeth Mitchell is a smidge less locked into the no-frills folkie formula on You Are My Sunshine than on her debut, You Are My Flower. In fact, if you subtract the A-list collaborators (and, OK, the dulcimers, mandolins, and human beat boxes), Mitchell starts to look a lot lik...	Ten Small Paces Their third record pieces together a scrapbook of an album, totaling fifteen tracks recorded in almost as many places. Some four-track, some studio, and some bedroom tracks find their home on this beautiful album that led to Ida's work with Capital Records. Double gatefold 2XLP, ...	You Are My Little Bird Your kids will listen and youll be singing along. Not your typical CD for kids, this one is a mix of new, classic, & multicultural songs from an amazing mother, father, child trio. Youll fall in love with the acoustics, harmonies, and lilting melodies. Catchy tunes inspire a ...	You Are My Flower Elizabeth Mitchell goes with what she knows on You Are My Flower. Here a selection of sturdy, old-fashioned songs are delivered with a clear, clipped voice accompanied by a single guitar. The result is an album most parents would make for their own kids if they possessed Mitchell...	The Stage Names This record dynamites the moss-covered castle walls of 2005's "Black Sheep Boy" to let in the glaring sun. Riddled with characters real and fake, with the relics of high culture and the crumpled up trash of low culture, "The Stage Names" is a cinemascopic take on the meaning o...

It's pretty, it's edgy, it's smart, and it's convincing
I love this record. I've had "Maybelle," "Shotgun," "Shrug" and "Encantada" in heavy rotation for seven years. They are some of the best-crafted songs I know. It's hard to pull off being this pretty and not coming across as sentimental, but Ida manages the trick. The rest of the album holds up fairly well to repeated listening as well. I think this is Ida's best album, but there is a side project by Elizabeth Mitchell and Daniel Littleton called Nanang Tatang Muki that just might be better. It is worth tracking down.

I'da like some Ida
Lately my obsession has been rock music that has country undertones. Wilco, Uncle Tupelo, Neko Case, Beulah. That last one more than the others. These songs ache with goodness, I'm sure you'll see there's more than an adequate serving on this album. It seems that each track is crying out to you to love it. To embrace each precious moment and word uttered so softly and with such a delicate background of sound keeping all into the mood of soothing but sad. To even say this is a sad album is an understatement, cause I thought it quite sad at first and then found it to be heartwarming the more and more I gave it a chance. Back to the country thing. It just sounds like country, but not the store bought sappy country tv crap, but classical country, like Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn. The stuff where people are aching all over their instruments and hope that you might feel the least bit good from feeling so bad.

From beginning to end, a masterpiece...
I can't tell you in words how good this album is. It is arguably Ida's best (and Ida has quite a few legendary albums), not only because of how good each song is, but because of how it all goes together, tied by a stream of strange dissonant sounds. It is absolutely perfect for a sad day, or the end of a night, or when you just need something to relax to. But again, words can't explain it. High points are "Maybelle," "Shrug," "This Water," "Turn Me On," "Man in Mind," "Firefly," and "Don't Get Sad." Aw, hell, every single song on the damn thing is great! Stop reading this and buy the album (or order it because your record store has never heard of it)!

If you don't buy this record, God won't like you
From NOTES FROM HAMPSTEAD by Elias Canetti: "I cannot help myself. In the greatest misfortune I, the unbeliever, await miracles. Of all the old doctrines of faith, only one has remained intact for me: the miracle. But I don't want to know where it comes from; I don't want to make one happen. It should remain just what it is, inexplicable, intractable, just a miracle." From Lester Bangs's review of ASTRAL WEEKS: "Because you're in trouble anyway when you sit yourself down to explicate just exactly what a mystical document, which is exactly what ASTRAL WEEKS is, means. For one thing, what it means is Richard Davis's bass playing, which complements the songs and singing all the way with a lyricism that's something more than just great musicianship: there is something about it that's more than inspired, something that has been touched, that's in the realm of the miraculous." I feel the same way about Dan Littleton's guitarsmanship on a track called MAYBELLE. (And I love how Liz's violin-voice is complemented by Karla's viola-voice.)

Epic.
Ida is my favorite band, however, I do not mean to impose my personal opinion with this review. I find as a muscian that this album is very appealing. The openening track "Down On Your Back" hails the sweet harmonic sentiment of most Ida songs with a somewhat dark twist. Very interesting progression of chords and clever use of instrumentation throughout the entire cd makes this an incredible, dynamic and most of all interesting listening experience. Along with that, Littleton, Mitchell and Shickle prove to be an effective ensemble lyrically and vocally. Littleton has a quiet reverence with his soft spoken lullaby voice that at any given moment can turn into heartfelt outcry as in "Past the Past". Elizabeth Mitchell has by far one of the most beautiful voices I have ever heard (listen to "The Radiator" you'll know what I mean). Karla Shickle has a sly almost sarcastic catchiness to her voice and rocks on the piano laden song "Man in Mind". All in all this is a great cd and a great start for anyone who wants to get familiar with this band. It will keep you interested from beginning to end.