Dot.’s ‘Girls Night’ is a Gentle Stroll Into the New Year

It has been a little over a month since Ethel Muggs asked herself if she wanted to move to the fancier hair salon in Riverdale. As if by happenstance stranger than fiction, the character’s alter-ego is also placed at an equally curious fork in her road. Bangalore-based singer-songwriter and actress Dot. (aka Aditi Saigal) released her latest single, “Girls Night,” via Welsh singles label The Playbook. Following her acting debut in Netflix India’s The Archies, this distinctly marks a new musical direction for Dot. Although, does she continue down the path of reasonable resistance with the comfortable corner of English indie that has seen marginal mainstream success in the past few years? Or does she attempt to chip away at the mold?

“Girls Night” is an interestingly soft pivot, with this single channeling a bright, sunny Motown-infusion of jazz-pop. It invokes a welcomed maturity of a similar kind when you make the active attempt to choose a more intimate, contained celebration over a large, over-the-top bash. Dot.’s warm vocals easily guide the listener through her ruminations of this close-friends-only party.

The uniqueness of Dot.’s artistry lies not just in her velveteen vocals. Nor does it just lie in her choice of collaborators, each of whom lifts the production of each track to a space unheard of within the circuits they operate in (as was the case in “Spice Lemonade” with Ahmedabad-based artist Chirag Todi). Dot.’s uniqueness is truly her ability to build an immersive world for her listeners. While the arrangement of her past projects, such as Khamotion and Indigo, was noteworthy, the songwriter’s attention to detail is what set her apart.

“Girls Night is about two of my closest friends. We buy loads of wine and have the best, most intelligent and empathetic conversations. We laugh, we’re sensitive, we can be rowdy, we talk about boys, we sometimes don’t know what it is we’re feeling, but we do it together and that makes life a little easier. The song tries to reflect that kind of friendship.

After ‘Indigo’, it is the second track of mine produced by Welsh singles label ‘The Playbook’ in collaboration with James Gair. This is kind of a match made in heaven because the Playbook guys have a sophisticated understanding of the kind of electronic production elements that work for my music. Between Playbook, James and I, we’ve worked out a healthy push and pull between pop and jazz, resulting in something that’s layered and also fun to listen to.”

Currently in the middle of her Master’s degree, 2024 is shaping up to be a critical year for the young singer-songwriter. Off the recent success of her 2023 album Practice Rooms, Dot.’s songwriting is showcasing a much more emotional, heartfelt truth to her approach career-wise. When asked about her ethos on the same, she says, “I don’t want to do something just because it’s the best move.” For her, it’s about embodying a truth, her own.

And this seems to be the mantra that has driven Dot. to where she is today. The mold may not necessarily need breaking; the comfort of a genre may just be its boon for success. Dot. continues to do the things she wants in the way she wants to. This embodiment of her truth is visible in her lyricism, her acting, and her choice to kick back, let her hair down, and go have a spectacular Girls Night.