So I was just reading Matt LeMay's review of Ida's last studio album, 2000's Will You Find Me, in which he called the album a tired collection of love songs sang in 3rds, 4ths, and 5ths that tries really hard to be pretty. He was dead on. Not surprisingly, The Braille Night could be described in the exact same terms, and not just because its songs were recorded during the same sessions, and left off for release as a separate album. (Kind of like Kid A and Amnesiac, except for that whole being awesome thing.) Only in a world with little justice could Ida make the same album twice and expect Matt and I to write two different reviews.
The Braille Night is a bit slower and sparser than Will You Find Me, but while Ida may tweak their formula by more adding drums, strings, bagpipes, and even band members with each consecutive album, they consistently deliver the same cloying Ida. I'm not sure Ida's fans are looking for anything new, though, as the pleasures this band delivers are centered around nostalgia, sentiment and repetition. When challenged, none of these fans will ever suggest that Ida are brilliant; instead, they defend the band with sappy looks that say, "But they're Ida!"
Ida's first album, 1995's Tales of Brave Ida, featured only guitars, bass, and lovers-- Liz Mitchell and Dan Littleton (a former member of the punk band the Hated, and the ex-guitarist for Jenny Toomey's old band, Liquorice). Ida's sophomore effort added Dan's brother Michael on drums. In 1997, violinist Ida Pearle joined the band (she also designed the synchronized swimmers that glide past perfect stars on The Braille Night's cardboard sleeve, as well as the ones in the liner notes of Ted Leo's excellent Tyranny of Distance). Beekeeper's Karla Schickele also came along around that time, adding her bass, piano, and of course, her harmonies, to the proceedings. Then, on November 20th, 1999, Liz and Dan married. The love keeps growing.
While conjuring images of feeling through darkness to find meaning with one's fingertips, this album's title, The Braille Night, grasps at poetry. And although I'm not quite sure what it means-- it seems to refer less to a touch or a tactile text than to a night that asks you to read differently-- I like it. In sound, Ida define "The Braille Night" as a quiet Wurlitzer drone. Often, the drone is pierced with Pearle's bow which pushes through the album, lingering until it rests as the backdrop to the album's eighth track, the detached observational travel-log, "Gladiolas."
"Blizzard of '78" is The Braille Night's first single. It begins with an overbearing progression that sounds like the band's take on an 80s arena anthem, and then mellows into a bland, harmonized ballad exclaiming, "You're a thousand miles from here/ You just want to disappear." But it doesn't end there-- Ida keep stepping up the volume as they continue: "Beauty shines so bright/ Vanishes from sight/ Wrap yourself in the night/ Go with all your mi-[building]-iii-[building]-iii-[building]-iiight-ah!" It's intense! Like a blizzard!
The full sound of "Blizzard of '78" empties out into the appropriately titled "So Worn Out," a track which pairs the simple guitarwork of vintage Ida (no drums) with Dan Littleton's lullaby vocals. But Ida are most palatable at their least cohesive. In moments where plucked guitar wanders off in directions that the violin seems unaware of, or when Mitchell and Littleton fail to harmonize, they can sound playful and delicate. Unfortunately, Ida too often go for swells of perfectly united voices, or plucked arpeggios and chords that rise up to form the empty structures of an emotional climax that waits to be filled with lyrics scribbled in diaries.
If any musical ideas, inspiring stories, or passionate impulses are lost in The Braille Night, it's because they're hidden too deeply in the romantic trappings, and can't be considered a reason to listen. In fact, if there's any reason to listen, I can't tell you what it is. All I know is, Ida are holding fast to the same pretty, pretty harmonies they've grown so comfortable with, and that the story's still the same.
