Aditi Saigal, Better Known By Her Stage Name DOT, Retains Her Cheerful Appeal In ‘Khamotion’ With An Added Flair Of Brass And Jazz
When using public transport, you might be, without delay, each in movement and sitting fully nonetheless. It is on this twin state that Aditi Saigal (DOT) immerses herself in music, arising with new track concepts.
In 2017, DOT took the indie music world without warning with uncooked recordings of herself, singing ditties on the piano. And now, the 22-year-old is again together with her first EP, Khamotion.
Comprising songs akin to ‘Taxi Fare’, ‘This Train’ and ‘Sultry Town (Ship’s Got No Sail)’, the album is devoted to the idea of movement; the thought got here to her on the every day commute to her faculty campus in Bangor, Wales, UK. The video for ‘This Train’, in truth, is an intercut of fan movies from all over the world of individuals utilizing totally different modes of transportation. It is a contemplation on being compelled to remain nonetheless (’Busy In Beige’, although written two years in the past, is befitting of the times of isolation) and wanting to maintain shifting. Their launch now, after a 12 months in standstill, is suitable.
“I first wrote these songs as a final year project at Bangor University in 2019, and I thought why not polish them,” she says, on a name from Wales.
Khamotion sees DOT enter into what she calls her “new sound”: jazzy, sometimes classic, and added layers of brass — from clarinets and woodwinds to trumpets and saxophones. “I have also been experimenting with building vocal walls of sound,” she provides.
DOT desires to retain her natural songwriting method even whereas producing polished songs. “I hate going to the studio with a click track already in mind. I like to slow down, speed up, without keeping time with clicks. To me, that is what jazz is,” she says. And that’s the way it was recorded, with the piano and the drums taking part in collectively, in adjoining rooms with the door left barely ajar.
The album culminates in ‘Rush’, a collection of grooves put collectively from all the opposite songs. It is an try to interrupt freed from the verse-chorus-bridge constructions of pop. Yet, songs like ‘Taxi Fare’ are nonetheless harking back to the ‘Everybody Dances to Techno’ days.
The latter was DOT’s breakout track as an 18-year-old, who was then simply recording songs on her piano and placing them up on YouTube. As the daughter of musician Amit Saigal, founding father of Rock Street Journal, DOT was no stranger to the music world, however after ‘Techno’, fame got here knocking in a single day.
“It all happened so fast… I wasn’t prepared. I did tours, signed pictures, but by the end, I was burnt out. I felt like I had nothing new to say,” she says. A number of songs and some excursions later, DOT appeared to have disappeared — radio silence left followers questioning if she had stopped making music.
DOT moved to Bangor to check Music and Creative Writing, after which took up a job as a educating assistant for particular wants college students. “I don’t like the idea that one person can have just one passion. I like doing a million things at once,” she says.
Her keep in Wales, and its proximity to live shows and open mics in Manchester and Liverpool, additionally allowed her to collaborate with musicians, be taught arranging music, and uncover her sound. “But the main thing I have picked up here is a longing to go back home and continue making music,” she says.
