Ida

BIOGRAPHY

Ida was founded in 1992 by NYC-based singers/guitarists Daniel Littleton and Elizabeth Mitchell, bringing together a wide variety of disparate influences into a singular minimalist brand of experimental pop all their own. Ida made their debut with 1994’s luminous Tales of Brave Ida, released on Tsunami frontwoman Jenny Toomey’s hugely influential Simple Machines label. The project soon grew into a full-fledged band with the addition of Littleton’s brother Michael on drums and bassist Karla Schickele, followed by 1996’s I Know About You and 1997’s Ten Small Paces, both of which earned acclaim for their subtle arrangements, rich harmonies, and stunning songcraft.

Looking to expand their sound and audience, Ida signed to Capitol Records in 1997 and set to work on what would become Will You Find Me. The protracted process saw the band recording in 14 studios across the country, joined by an array of additional musicians including Tara Jane O’Neil, Warren Defever, and the one and only Bernie Worrell. The resulting collection captures a band caught between Brooklyn and Woodstock, temping and adulting, burying a parent and birthing a child. A tireless compendium and ode to sleep, sex, all-night talking, and other bed-ridden activities, Will You Find Me was ultimately released in 2000 by New York-based independent label Tiger Style Records to worldwide praise from such publications as the New York Times, whose Jon Pareles described its songs as “like the whispers of uncertain lovers in a perpetual dance of vulnerability and assurance, parting and reconciliation.”

The Will You Find Me 25th Anniversary Edition now sees the landmark album joined by a remarkable span of recordings thematically joined together to become, as Daniel Littleton says, “essentially like mixtapes from our archive, to share with anyone who is interested in Ida and what we were up to back then. Each one is meant to function as both a companion to the original album and simultaneously to be heard as a stand-alone sequence of songs if you’d like.”

“For Ida, Will You Find Me was both a beginning and an ending,” Littleton says, “a time where we grew creatively and maybe made some of our strongest work, but without a doubt, we never did anything like this again.”