With a title like “Mrs. Dick Van Dike,” a student of pop culture might ask, is the new song from D.C.’s Cruzie Beaux a wry take on nostalgia? A feminist critique?
Turns out no — the electronic-pop tune is just about recording as a solo artist.
“I feel like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins, just like, sitting here pressing all these buttons,” says Cruzie Beaux’s Kristina Reznikov, 28, who named the song after the classic film’s one-man band, Bert. (The misspelling of “Dyke” is intentional, she adds.)
“Mrs. Dick Van Dike” (listen below) sounds remix-ready, riding on the tempo of its piano hook and dipping into valleys of ambience. Mixed by Mat Leffler-Schulman of Mobtown Studios, its mellow vibe diverges from Reznikov’s relatively energetic first batch of songs, released as Demo 1. Though Reznikov worries she’s not sticking to her sound, the new track still unearths an uneasiness beneath her wailing vocals.
That tension might be familiar to fans of Reznikov’s previous work with Drop Electric. Reznikov left D.C. indie-rock band in mid-2014, but she says writing alone hasn’t been a difficult adjustment.
“It’s relaxing for me to sit in my room for five hours and play a beat,” Reznikov says.
Outside of a band, the songwriting process comes from the same place it always has: a compulsion to write. The Cleveland Park-based musician says her songwriting itch can get so powerful, it reaches “the point that even when I’m talking to people, I’m just thinking about a song that I’m writing,” she says. “It can get pretty annoying.”
If all goes according to plan, Cruzie Beaux will release her debut full-length this winter.