Ida Nilsen

Ida Nilsen
Also known asGreat Aunt Ida
OriginVancouver, British Columbia, Canada
GenresIndie pop
Occupation(s)Musician, songwriter
LabelsNorthern Electric, Zunior, Hive-fi, Dead House Plant
MembersBarry Mirochnick
Mark Haney
Past membersRyan Granville-Martin
Tim Vesely
Dan Goldman
Ben Bowen
Marshall Bureau
Jonathan Anderson
JP Carter
Annie Wilkinson
Scott Malin
Websitewww.greatauntida.com

Ida Nilsen is a Canadian indie pop singer-songwriter and musician. She has been a member of the bands Radiogram, The Violet Archers, The Beans, The Gay, The Buttless Chaps and The Choir Practice, and has appeared as a guest musician on albums by P:ano, Jerk With a Bomb, Montag and Veda Hille.

She formed her own band, Great Aunt Ida, in 2003. That band released its debut album, Our Fall, in 2005. Great Aunt Ida's second album How They Fly was released at the Railway Club in Vancouver on September 21, 2006. In a favourable review, critic Jennifer Van Evra wrote, "the album's simultaneously warm and spare arrangements give it an understated power".[1]

In August 2007, Nilsen moved from Vancouver to Toronto. She resided there settling in Parkdale writing the songs that were to become "Nuclearize Me", which Now Magazine described as "Reminiscent of Belle & Sebastian’s fuller late-period material, it’s steady and sure, intimate and honest, with songs that are so damn smartly crafted.",[2] recorded with Dave Draves at Little Bullhorn Studios in Ottawa. In 2012, Nilsen moved to Detroit, MI where she lived until 2015 when she moved back to Vancouver.

In 2021 she released Unsayable, her fourth album and her first in a decade.[3]

  1. ^ Van Evra, Jennifer (October 26, 2006). "Great Aunt Ida Archived 2012-10-18 at the Wayback Machine", The Georgia Straight. Retrieved August 23, 2010.
  2. ^ https://www.nowtoronto.com/music/story.cfm?content=184270([permanent dead link] December 8, 2011)
  3. ^ Shawn Conner, "‘Great Aunt Ida’ Nilsen returns with the lush Unsayable". Vancouver Sun, September 1, 2021.