Musicality, passion, and energy mark the tracks on Click Click Domino, the second album from English transplants Ida Mae, who now make their home in Nashville. Starting with the deceptively sparse opening of “Road To Avalon,” which builds into an ethereal wash of slide guitar and haunting vocals, to the raw power of the title track – which is driven by piercing guitar work from Marcus King - Click Click Domino is a sonic adventure that explores themes inspired by Ida Mae’s first trip through the U.S. while touring behind their debut, Chasing Lights. It wasn’t the shows on the tour that inspired the married duo of Chris Turpin and Stephanie Jean, it was the time between spent traveling the highways and back roads that connect the big cities and small towns of America that spawned the songs on Click Click Domino.
“Coming from England, the U.S. feels like this incredibly vast landscape full of freedom and isolation and beauty and tragedy and lostness all mixed together,” says Turpin. “Driving over a hundred thousand miles for months on end, we couldn’t help but be inspired by it.”
Working mostly on their own, Turpin and Jean recorded Click Click Domino in Nashville during the Covid lockdown, capturing the unique chemistry that bonds them both musically and personally, while adding subtly powerful contributions from King, Greta Van Fleet’s Jake Kiszka and Ethan Johns. The tracks deal with a wide range of topics from social issues to romance, all while combining the wide-ranging palette of influences – Rock, Country, British Folk, ’50s Soul and more – to create a true “album” that benefits from the urgency generated by recording most songs in one or two takes.
“We’d come straight home from tour when Covid canceled everything,” explains Turpin. “We had the gear we were road ready, so we didn’t want to overthink it.”
With venues opening up around the country, Ida Mae is scheduled to be back on the road through the Fall, with more shows on the books for 2022. They can expect the crowds to keep growing with wide support from the Triple A panel, including stations like WMOT, WDST, WTMD, KRSH, WAPS, KMTN and more.
Photo by Joe Hottinger