The Archies star Dot aka Aditi Saigal re-releases her favourite songs as an album titled Practice Rooms

The album, quite literally, has the same raw and unfiltered performances from Dot.’s earlier years as a musician.

By Bollywood Hungama News Network -

December 20, 2023 - 4:38 PM IST

Dot aka Aditi Saigal has undoubtedly made a mark with her debut in Zoya Akhtar's The Archies! Now, she decided to re-release her fan-favorite 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 Archies star Dot aka Aditi Saigal re-releases her favourite songs as an album titled 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. 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. 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 picturized 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’.

Dot. now wants people to discover her journey in music & self-discovery by re-releasing these songs on streaming. As she 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 the 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 memories, to the people listening, and to the pianos that I played in the practice rooms.”