Ida
Will You Find Me
(Tiger Style)
2000
It was supposed to be Ida’s breakthrough. Following the demise of Arlington indie label Simple Machines, the New York-based quartet signed with Capitol Records in 1997 and began working on what would be their major label debut in November of the next year. While they were recording, however, the fickle winds of industry were roaring like a tornado through Captiol’s famed HQ at Hollywood and Vine, and when the dust had settled, Ida wasn’t in Kansas anymore. Where they were was out the door at Capitol Records, left to wiggle under a wad of legal goo that held them in artistic limbo for months.
When the band finally extracted their music from under Captiol’s corporate tentacles, they realized they had recorded enough material for two records. Safely back in the indie leagues with New York-based Tiger Style, Will You Find Me is the first of the proposed duo to be released (the tentative title for the second is The Braille Night) . Upon digging into its’ rich tapestry, it’s easy to surmise what the Capitol hierarchy heard in the contemplative pulchritude of songs like “The Radiator” and “Down On Your Back”. Namely, a limited audience. After all, with the kid’s rock/ oops-I-did-it-again mind set currently en vogue, could the mass market reasonably by expected to get n’sync with the delicate drift of Ida’s art?
It’s a shame no one will have the chance to find out, because Will You Find Me is the best record the band has made. Unifying the collection’s 57-plus minutes is a maturity of feeling and purpose that has been hinted at in previous works, but until now remained ungrasped. Uniquely earthy, these recordings congeal a variety of sounds into a whole that travels beyond the folk rock tag Ida is often mistakenly handed. In fact, if Will You Find Me has anything folk rock about it, it’s the kind of emotional investment in the material that the best of the genre ---meaning things like early albums by Fairport Convention and the Band--- needs to keep it from drying into dispassionate sawdust.
Last Fall, during an excellent gig at Arlington’s Iota nightclub, Ida performed without drummer Michael Littleton, who has left the band to pursue his own musical ideas. Playing several of the songs that have ended up on this album that afternoon, guitarist Daniel Littleton floated magnificently into the space where the drums had previously been. Sinking into skirling riffs and wide chord progressions to simultaneously drive and hook the songs, it was clear that Daniel’s six-string bending had reached new heights. Though Will You Find Me does contain Michael Littleton’s drums, songs like “Maybelle” still capture the wider vistas of that show thanks to Daniel’s exemplary guitar work. Part rhythmic marker, part melodic plucker, his playing knifes in and comes out with just a hint of blood visible. At his best-- establishing a fat acoustic bed on “Triptych”, dueling with rippling organ notes on “Shotgun”-- his guitar skill is simply way groovy.
Produced for the most part by Trina Shoemaker (whose resume includes albums with Sheryl Crow and Kristin Hersh) with assists from Warn DeFever (His Name Is Alive mastermind) and Tony Lash, (produced Elliot Smith and Richard Davies) the experience of getting loose in the studio with major-label cash flow behind them has clearly energized Ida’s sound. All told, they visited 12 different studios, worked with an eclectic palette of guest players (the key contributors are violinist Ida Pearle and double bassist Rick Lassister) and made sure to take care of an important detail: quality songs. Bassist Karla Schickele contributes three fine originals---“This Water”, “Man In Mind” and “Firefly”, the latter almost a Joni Mitchell love letter --- that carry tiny stings of anger and serve to frame the freer, mystical compositions of Daniel Littleton and his wife Elizabeth Mitchell. (The record’s only discernible misstep is the pair’s “Turn Me On”, which falls short of achieving the simmering sensuality it seeks. Perhaps they’re taking their penchant for Prince covers a bit too seriously.)
Anyone familiar with Ida from their three Simple Machines albums understands that harmony vocals are the group’s calling card. On Will You Find Me this closely woven singing is better than ever. The various combinations found between Mitchell’s diaphanous upper-register stylings, Schickele’s husky incantations and Daniel Littleton’s serviceable vocals are so tightly stitched it’s often hard to tell who’s singing what. The slacker lope of “Shrug” matches Mitchell and Littleton deliciously and one suspects that DeFever (credited with “Dictaphone, wire recorder, salt packet”) had a hand in the song’s scratchy climax. “The Radiator”, with lines like “I drove all night to see you/and I beat the sun, but not by very much” evokes love’s solemn and confusing obsession, while “Georgia”, where Lassiter’s sympathetic playing mixes with ethereal string whistles, might be the most beautiful thing Ida have recorded.
It has been written that very good albums are often made by groups who achieved a certain level of mutual understanding, and that some great songwriters acknowledge that they simply can’t write when they’re happy or their affairs in order. It is impossible to say how much turmoil Ida were in over the Capitol debacle during the recording of the tracks that became Will You Find Me, but this eye-opening disc is clearly full of mutual understanding among the players and vaults them beyond what their pleasant, but ultimately lightweight, earlier records indicated they were capable of. When they acknowledge, during “Triptych”, that they are “looking for what lasts” and ask “did we give away too much or was it right?”, those who are moved by this album will want to shout out to reassure them they are just fine. On Will You Find Me, Ida has found what lasts as well as what moves the heart. Heck, with a record like this to their credit, it can’t be long before the major labels come calling.
unpublished, 2000
