There's a great scene toward the end of War and Peace where the most astounding burst of music soars through a young boy's head as he rests before battle. As he revels in the music he has created within him, he thinks how great it would be if people could go inside his head and hear the music too. Then he is ordered to rise and get on his horse. He does as commanded, charges forward a few feet, and then gets shot, leaving just that bullet as witness to the exquisite melody in the boy's head. I guess that's about the only scene in War and Peace that I'll never forget, partly because Tolstoy captures what we and the boy generally fail to find: that perfect song or sentence which occasionally ferments within us. Will You Find Me?, then, becomes the question that songs ask a musician. "I am here", it says, "but will you damage me upon delivery?"

I'm not cynical, and I think that great music abounds, but I still believe that many artists -- even when they are geniuses -- fail to fully realize their ideas; for instance, were Prince always successful at this, I'm sure his Kirstie Alley segments in the Love Symbol album wouldn't have been so stupid.

Among indie bands, Ida seems to be among the most consistent at fulfilling the tasks their songs present them. On disc, they seem to be absolutely complete, and never leave you thinking "if only there was a little more bass here, or a tinkle of paino there". For "Down on Your Back", Will You Find Me's hypnotic opener, I think Ida also accurately conveys the sentiments some fans might have on the first listen. Barely progressing beyond a crawl, the delicate song goes on to assert, "Get to the point before you die", then lets its melody scatter into an epiphany of perfect directions.

While their songs occasionally recall slow songs by the Nields ("I Know What Kind of Love This Is") or Dar Williams ("The End of Summer"), Ida are a cut above every folk act I'm familiar with, and tend to bring a far greater range of influences to their music. Daniel wears his love of Prince most clearly, "Shrug" coming complete with Prince's style of spiritual allusion ("I've got the apple in me too/People are bluer than they ever imagined they might be"). This song, perhaps my favorite on the album, ends in a swirl of guitars that recalls a latter-day Yo La Tengo. Another fabulously soulful track is "Shotgun"; if you ignore the hard, uncharacteristically poetic lyrics ("We were like kids with a shotgun/blowing up words till there were none"), then there's no better recording to serve as soundtrack for brunch. If you're a Paul Weller fan, this is the soul music his Style Council aimed for.

If Will You Find Me does not end up among the prettiest records you hear this year, then we should be thrilled to death, this album alone is strong enough to make the year's music appear wonderfully rich. Ida's songs, less tension-filled this time around, capture fragile and tender memories in a couple's daily life ("The radiator was hissing in the kitchen/We sat on the fire escape your hand was in mine") -- often with the eloquent simplicity of Marvin Gaye -- and the instrumentation is always complex, moving, and engrossing, with sounds of the piano, cello and guitars persisting even after the great vocals of Dan, Elizabeth and Karla fade from memory.