Slow weekend mornings… I like them. A nice break from the general high-octane pace of daily life. To slide into the vibe I put on the album Sanguine Truth by the group The Casual Dots, an American band comprising of a number of punk scene veterans including guitarist/vocalist Christina Billotte (Slant 6, Quix*0*tic, Autoclave), guitarist Kathi Wilcox (Bikini Kill, The Julie Ruin) and drummer Steve Dore (Snoozers, Deep Lust). Comprised of musicians long involved in the underground from the DIY scenes of the late 1980s and early 1990s, The Casual Dots — despite being around since 2002 — have released only two albums in the past twenty years, with Sanguine Truth being released in 2022 and then eighteen years before that their first self-titled release having come out in 2003 right after they started.
This gap is likely due to a number of things, including members playing in different projects — such as Wilcox being active in Bikini Kill and The Julie Ruin — parenting (both Billotte and Wilcox are parents, the latter having a child with partner Guy Picciotto of Fugazi) and being in different locations with Billotte and Wilcox in Baltimore and New York respectively, with Dore living in London, England.
Perhaps a current band like The Casual Dots is regularly not the type of band I’d listen to — or at least, a band that one would suspect I wouldn’t listen to — but I like good music when I hear it regardless of style. That and I’ve been a fan of Billotte’s bands since I was a teenager, picking up a cassette copy of Slant 6‘s Soda Pop Ripoff around 1994 as at that point in time I was mining all the music in the catalogue Washington DC’s Dischord Records wanting to hear new things I hadn’t heard before.
Offhand the sound of Slant 6 has a retro garage rock tinged feel on a casual listen, and being a band of all women on in that underground scene got roped into the riot grrrl umbrella — especially with their early associations with Bikini Kill — although they were sort of operating on the other coast and likely were just going their own “thing”.
Very early on in getting familiar with the band’s music I caught onto the guitar work of Billotte, who on this record often sounds like she’s playing rhythm and lead guitar at the same time on some songs. I can visualise the wide stretching of fingers on the fretboard of her Danelectro to fill in all of the notes seemingly present in their music. That and there was a quality to her vocals that were unique that could span from more antagonistic delivery to a more sweeter approach that pulled influence from 60s girl groups such as the Shangri-Las, and other similar music from that time.
That cassette got a lot of plays — probably to the point it got worn out — and to a lesser degree the band’s second and final LP Inzombia released in 1995 which carried on that unique spin they had on garage rock with a few more experimental, filmic pieces.
Former punk singer of Born Against and former record label owner of Vermiform Sam McPheeters, who is now a writer with the absolute gem of a book covering his experiences in hardcore called Mutations: The Many Strange Faces of Hardcore Punk in fact has a whole chapter in his book called “The Casual Dots: My Last Band” in which he has some humourous yet fond recollections of his interactions with Billotte during the Slant 6 days in the mid-90s:
Only later did I discover [Slant 6’s] joyous first LP, Soda Pop Rip Off (Dischord, 1994), which sounds like covers of the absolute best mid-sixties private press garage rock, expertly reworked into the kind of spooky punk that, in its exploratory prowess, sidesteps easy categorization. Slant 6 always struck me as a band stuck in the wrong era… Before I knew her personally, I’d developed a precise and completely false image of Christina as a sort of tough-talking, gum-snapping, switchblade-wielding Pinky Tuscadero type. This misconception came from her delivery on that LP (and maybe the jaunty pose she struck on the Soda cover photo).
Following the demise of Slant 6 Billotte formed the strangely spelt out Quix*o*tic with her sister Mira Billotte on drums and a couple of different bass players include Brandon Majewski (who passed in 2011) and Mick Barr. With a noticeable shift in sound, the compositions in this group where far more minimal sounding with more variation, but overall with this overarching gothic (not goth) feel to them, like a rat pack take on an Edward Gorey illustration.
Take for instance a track like “My Birthday Party” (see below) with it’s elaborate, labyrinthine guitar work making use of a lot of chromatic note structures and then going into a track like “Anonymous Face” which sounds like a quality, 60s minimal R&B recording, all made that much more amazing by the fact that both the Billotte sisters are great vocalists.
And with that band being active for only five years, this general musical approach gets carried over somewhat to The Casual Dots, which saw Christina Billotte pairing up with old friend Kathi Wilcox for some dual guitar action. I’ve listened to their latest Sanguine Truth quite a bit, perhaps as it stands out from the music I may more typically listen to and it’s done really well.
The track I’m showcasing here is called “The Setting Sun” which has a slightly austere sound — like many tracks on this album — but with a clipped staccato feel with the guitars. It has a light melancholy to it and for some reason the usage of chords and notes in some parts have this weird Gregorian feel to it — I’m probably using the wrong term here. The vocals sit nicely over top with the notes selected for the melody working nicely for this track.
If anything the entire album weaves through more upbeat numbers to ones that have this melancholic feel, and even at times a bit serene. And much like Quix*o*tic, there’s a couple of numbers on here at least that pull reference from crooner, “girl group” style compositions from the 1950s and 1960s — such as “Live For Yourself” (see below) — which might sound too contrived and retro if attempted by most artists but this band seem to do it more organically and without too much forced effort. There’s even some slightly no wave skronk thrown in for good measure on a track like “17 Year Old Locust”.
Overall, when I discover a musician that has an interesting spin on things — such as Billotte — and an identifiable style I relate to, I generally tend to stick with them over the years to hear the newest thing they’ve done, such as the case here. So yeah, a good Sunday listen!