music moots with Pictoria Vark ("A Song For You" by the Carpenters)
We are extremely back with Music Moots™, the blogseries where I ask someone to recommend me a song they like, and then I listen to the song and then write a little about it.
Today we've got Pictoria Vark! Pictoria Vark is Victoria Park—I am never going to get over what a good spoonerism this musician name is—who makes indie rock music in Chicago. I interviewed her for The Alternative back in 2022 when she was living in Iowa and about to release her debut album The Parts I Dread; she just put out her follow-up Nothing Sticks, which has lots of instrumental zings that contribute to the continuous evolution of the Pictoria Vark sound (contemplative, prominent bass lines; Quiet Yearning; bursts of gnarly fuzz).
Pictoria Vark
Nothing Sticks is a lovely listen all the way through, but I was playing it on one of my big walks and there were a few moments that I basically had to screenshot the timecode of because they made me go WAOOW and I knew I wanted to come back to them. So here they are:
mournful trumpet moment
fuckin ROCKIN guitar solo
nice vocal harmonies and heyyyy it's the name of the album, on a song that isn't the name of the album, love when this happens
this moment is so cool and special that I don't even want to spoil it so you should listen yourselves
Victoria recommended a song to me to listen to, which is "A Song For You" by the Carpenters: "I think they've made the most musical music of all time—a platonic ideal of the fullness that music can be. 'Listen to the melody cause my love is in there hiding' is a perfect line, especially if you sing as well as Karen Carpenter."
"A platonic ideal of the fullness that music can be" — this is such a good description of so much of the popular music of the 1970s. I feel like I came of age at a time when '70s music appreciation was at a nadir, and the tunes were generally derided for being overproduced and corny—I just rewatched the 2007 movie Knocked Up, which contains the line "Steely Dan gargles my balls", and that basically describes how people felt about '70s music in the '00s—but because everything on earth is cyclical, fresh ears can appreciate the craft anew.
What stands out to me about "A Song For You" are the little details. Every element arrives at the perfect time: the organ at :31, the strings at :47, the sudden lush vocal harmonies at 1:31, the saxophone at 2:09. It's like a painting! Delicate brush strokes!
I also totally see how a song like this, though differing in genre from Pictoria Vark music, reflects the construction of the songs on Nothing Sticks, all of which have moments of musical enhancement beyond the usual guitar bass and drums. Such layered and painstaking construction gives one a sense that the maker of the music truly gives a shit about how everything's supposed to come across. Maybe there were accidents or improvisations during the writing and recording process, but it's all presented in an intentional way, and the result is a feeling of pure love extended toward the listener. You could have been doing anything at all, but instead you're choosing to hear my song. So this is a song for you.
Thank you Victoria! Listen to Pictoria Vark's Nothing Sticks here and check out her link aggregation.
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