Dot. makes music and has been doing so for a while now. Her first EP ‘Khamotion’ came out a couple years back, and since then, she’s been doing a few singles here, a collab there (like ‘Spiced Lemonade’ with Chirag Todi, which is a fantastic song; give it a listen or three). It seems like her studio releases (‘Khamotion’ was the first release that landed on streaming even though she’s been making stuff for many, many years now) came from an area of (not a quote) ‘this is music I wrote and started on a while ago, and here it is fully realised’, and they do have a ‘deliberate’ air. That, then, should give plenty of context for ‘Indigo’, a new single that sees her adopting a much more present and current attitude towards her own work. That’s growth, and it’s positive growth at that.

Anyone familiar with Dot.’s earlier music will find themselves right at home with ‘Indigo’, but not in a stale way. The old-world vibe that she used for a while is still around, but it’s more a tool rather than her identity; this is actually the most subtle and also the biggest thing to take away from this song. If you do enjoy listening to her music, try to remove some of the familiarity you have developed, and then you might see all the quietly interesting stuff that’s going on. The little drum machine that does all the rhythmic work, the piano that has a classic sound but a more assertive place in the mix, the contemporary delivery (much more so than usual) … there’s even a very straight-ahead structure that calls towards her current tastes.

Don’t get it twisted, though. This is not a sea change, but it is a substantial one. Some of us will hear snatches of ‘God Only Knows’ in the vocal melody and equate what is actually a very modern lounge music revival (the groove) to preconceived notions of when Dot. used to do the phone-video stuff. And while that’s all right, ‘Indigo’ does seem like a pretty clear statement of someone leaving a shell and wanting to bring listeners along on that process. So, this 3-minute tune does have more weight than it might seem. And a ton of replayability, but that is something you would and should expect.