Dot. aka Aditi Saigal has undoubtedly made a mark as the biggest debut of the year by a Gen-Z talent with The Archies! Dot. has received unanimous love for her big launch in Zoya Akhtar’s film as an actor-artiste, a rare breed in the Indian entertainment industry. While she savours the incredible acclaim coming in from all quarters for her acting as well as her singing, composing & writing skills in The Archies, Dot. has decided to re-release her fan-favourite YouTube songs on streaming as an Album titled ‘Practice Rooms’ today!
It is to be noted that Dot. broke out on the internet via YouTube with her viral song ‘Everybody Dances To Techno’. She has now released 10 tracks including now-popular songs like ‘Asymmetrical’ which is also a part of The Archies album, and ‘Lillian’ among others which were composed over the last seven years as the album Practice Rooms.
The album, quite literally, has the same raw and unfiltered performances from Dot.’s earlier years as a musician. These songs were recorded by her with a piano and an old phone in her university’s (University of Bangor) practice rooms in Wales. Check out the album here: https://linktr.ee/dotandthesyllables
There is a sense of nostalgia to these older songs she wrote and composed for open mic nights at her college, and an innocence to this music that resonated with many people. In fact, Zoya Akhtar was one of them; she heard ‘Asymmetrical’ back in those days, which led to Dot.’s debut acting role as Ethel Muggs in the just-released Netflix film ‘The Archies’.
In The Archies, Dot. wrote and sang all four Dear Diary themes picturised on Khushi Kapoor, as well as lending her voice to the character of Betty (Khushi), singing and composing ‘Asymmetrical’! She has also sung the other two chartbusters ‘Dhishoom Dhishoom’ and ‘Sunoh’. These two songs are amongst the top listened songs in India across all music platforms.
Dot. now wants people to discover her journey in music & self-discovery by re-releasing these songs on streaming. With The Archies giving her a lot of attention, she wants people to get a glimpse into her mind and listen to her heart as it evolved to who she is today. Listeners are invited to look back on her past in the honest, raw way that her music was through Practice Rooms.
As Dot. says herself, “I wrote these songs when I was in college in Wales, and as such, the lyrical content is reflective of that time in my life. Bangor is a seaside university town in North Wales so some of the imagery in the music was naturally picked up from lush countryside, the charm of the Welsh people and of course college life, heartbreak and friendship.After the response on YouTube and the subsequent India tour, the natural next step for me was to re-record the music in a professional studio environment. But there were two problems. One, I was terrified of being a one hit wonder, and two, whenever I tried to rerecord the tracks they felt stripped of what made them special.”
She adds, “I just didn’t want them to be pristine. There are mistakes. Those were the formative years of my musicianship. And people still connected with them, warts and all. Over the past six years I’ve tried to ‘studiofy’ these rough little ditties but it never felt right.”
She further says, “So I’m putting them out now as ‘Practice Rooms’, just as they were. They stopped belonging to me a long time ago and now I just want to appreciate them as a version of me in the past. The album is also kind of a thank you to all the people who have been listening all these years. A love letter, if you will, to the past memories, to the people listening, and to the pianos that I played in the practice rooms.”
‘Practice Rooms’ is out on all major platforms for people to sample globally.
