Tokidoki, the band and the album, has an almost tragically cute name that calls to mind the Power Puff Girls and Hello Kitty. It's hip to be four going on twenty-four when listening to Tokidoki. The music, though, is anything but cute; it's sweet, languid, acoustic and intimate, like café music in a tiny basement.

While it bears a passing resemblance to Ida, Tokidoki's music sounds even more like Mates of State and the late, lamented BusyToby -- specifically, their chiming-sweetness vibe and use of organs. The combination of Peter and Nora's voices, acoustic guitar and organ (keyboard) is so twee it might be over-sweet-- but you know that they mean every word, and you can't help but respond to their emotional entreaties. It doesn't hurt that unlike Ida, Tokidoki seems happy as hell; they're much like Shonen Knife in this respect, but less muscular and not concerned with shocking their listeners with camp. More than one of their songs is concerned with fairy tales, but all have a modern twist; a sense of childish happiness is reflected in their lyrics. Take this lyric from "Sleeping Beauty": "I don't want you to be / anything new to me / I still want you to be sleeping in glass / waiting for me.". Their preferred rhyme scheme -- a simplistic ABAB -- reflects "lavender's blue, rosemary's green" rhymes; it isn't the most sophisticated approach, but it works in a freaky way because of the places in which they choose to break their lines. The weird breaks call your attention to the lyrics at times when you would normally allow the strumming and the echoing organ chords to take over and absorb your attention.

One of the great qualities of modern art is its simplicity; you're almost certain that you could make a lot of it yourself at home, with the purchase of some paints or a few extra power tools. Tokidoki makes music that you'll think you could make -- and the proliferation of bedroom rockers feeds that idea a hell of a lot more than the appeal of painting a faux-Rothko in your back yard. You'd be wrong to think you could reproduce Tokidoki, though. Their art comes from their ability to make something so simple, so well -- better than almost anyone else.

My only reservations concerning Tokidoki, in fact, are not about the quality of their art at all, but rather its quantity. When a band makes an album this good, you naturally want them to make more. However, it has taken years to make this album (Tokidoki notes that most of their peers who have played with them knew this album has been coming for some years), and the two band members live far apart; Peter remained in Chicago after school, whereas Nora has migrated to NYC. Here's hoping that we don't have to wait quite so long for a follow-up, and that Nora and Peter play again.