Pitchfork

When it came time to record Lovers Prayers, their follow-up to 2005's Heart Like a River, New Yorkers Ida did the Bon Iver retreat-into-the-woods thing. The thing is, they chose a pretty cool patch of woods for the retreat: the home studio of Levon Helm (Arkansas native, drummer for the Band, actor in The Right Stuff, all-around cool-seeming guy) in the Catskill Mountains.

While there, the band was able to get Helm to sit in with them for a little bit of drum recording. And in addition to the work of new band members Jean Cook (Mekons) on violin and Ruth Keating on drum and multi-instrumental duties, contributions to the album included guitar, drums, and cover art from Tara Jane O'Neil, cello from Jane Scarpantoni (R.E.M., Lou Reed, Rufus Wainwright), pedal steel from Matt Sutton, and engineering from Justin Guip, Helm's own engineer. Longtime Ida collaborator Warn Defever (His Name Is Alive) helped the band produce the album.

Lovers Prayers marks Ida's seventh full-length overall and second for Polyvinyl, which will release the record on January 29. The band has three New York dates scheduled for this month, starting with an NYC show on November 15.

Finally, during the time they recorded Lovers Prayers, Ida were also afforded the opportunity to collaborate with one of their heroes: songwriter Michael Hurley, who lends fiddle to Lovers. The band is currently working with him on another new project.

Lovers Prayers:

01 Lovers Prayers
02 The Weight of the Straw
03 The Love Below
04 Willow Tree
05 Worried Mind Blues
06 Gravity
07 For Shame of Doing Wrong
08 First Light
09 Kora
10 Surely Gone
11 The Killers 1964
12 See the Stars
13 First Take
14 Blue Clouds

Ida:

11-15 New York, NY - Knitting Factory *
11-17 Rosendale, NY - Rosendale Cafe *
11-18 Woodstock, NY - Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary

* with Tara Jane O'Neil