Charanjit Singh - 1983 - Synthesizing: Ten Ragas To A Disco Beat

Charanjit Sing

1983 

Synthesizing: Ten Ragas To A Disco Beat

01. Raga Bhairav 5:00

02. Raga Lalit 4:56

03. Raga Bhupali 4:54

04. Raga Todi 4:53

05. Raga Madhuvanti 4:59

06. Raga Megh Malhar 5:02

07. Raga Yaman 5:07

08. Raga Kalavati 5:08

09. Raga Malkauns 5:03

10. Raga Bairagi 5:08

Recorded At – HMV Studios, Bombay

Mastered At – Ballyhoo Studio Mastering

Keyboards, Programmed By – Charanjit Singh

The Bollywood Session Cat Who Accidentally Invented Acid House While Trying to Cash In on Disco (And Nobody Noticed for 28 Years)

Let’s just say it upfront: in 1982, a 42-year-old Mumbai session musician walks into a studio with three brand-new Roland toys, thinks “Hey, what if I play ancient Indian ragas on this squelchy bass machine but with a disco kick instead of tabla?”, records the whole thing in two days, releases it on His Master’s Voice (the Indian EMI), and… crickets. The album bombs so hard it basically disappears. Fast-forward to 2010, some Dutch crate-diggers reissue it, and suddenly the entire electronic music world loses its collective mind because this thing sounds EXACTLY like 1987 Chicago acid house—five years early. Charanjit Singh, a guy who spent his life playing guitar on Bollywood soundtracks and covering film hits at weddings, becomes the accidental godfather of a genre he’d never even heard of. If that’s not the funniest plot twist in music history, I don’t know what is.

The Man Who Could Play Anything (Except Fame, Apparently): A Mini-Bio of Charanjit Singh

Born in 1940 (some sources say ’39, calendars were optional back then), Charanjit grew up in Mumbai, started on violin, switched to Hawaiian guitar because it was cooler, and by the ’60s was the go-to session wizard for Bollywood’s golden era. We’re talking hundreds of soundtracks—R.D. Burman’s funky breaks, Laxmikant-Pyarelal’s orchestral epics (Amar Akbar Anthony, anyone?), the works. If a music director wanted “that modern sound,” Charanjit was the first call. He was the Indian equivalent of Carol Kaye or James Jamerson, except instead of Motown he was adding wah-wah to songs about lost lovers and dancing around trees.

In the late ’70s/early ’80s he got obsessed with synthesizers, started covering entire Bollywood albums on synth (his 1981 Silsila synth tribute is hilariously faithful), and then—boom—bought the holy trinity fresh off the boat: Roland TB-303, TR-808, and Jupiter-8. He thought disco was the hot new thing in India (thanks, Boney M imports and Nazia Hassan), so why not fuse it with classical ragas? Recorded the album in 1982, released in ’82/’83 under the title Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat on EMI India’s Super Cassette label. Sold maybe a few thousand copies, got a little radio play, then vanished.

Charanjit kept gigging weddings, raised a family (his son Raju Singh is a big Bollywood composer now), and basically forgot about it. Rediscovered in the 2000s by Dutch collector Edo Bouman of Bombay Connection, properly reissued in 2010, and suddenly the shy grandpa is touring Europe at age 72 with a Dutch techno DJ recreating the album live. The Guardian interviews him eating biscuits in Acton, he shrugs and says “I just wanted to do something different.” He passed away peacefully in 2015 at 75, probably still bemused that a throwaway experiment made him an electronic music legend.

Just One Guy and Three Japanese Robots Who Didn’t Know They Were Making History

This is the ultimate bedroom-producer album—thirty years early.

Charanjit Singh – everything. Roland Jupiter-8 (lead melodies and pads), TB-303 (those iconic slippery, resonant basslines), TR-808 (boom-tick disco kicks and claps), programming, arranging, producing, probably the chai boy too.

No band, no overdubs mentioned, no tabla player looking confused in the corner. Recorded in two days at HMV Studio, Bombay. Engineer? Unknown. Budget? Whatever spare studio time he could book.

That’s it. One Sikh gentleman versus the machines—and the machines lost.

Ten Tracks of “Wait, This Is 1982?!” Pure Cosmic Squlech

Forget side A/B—this was originally one continuous 50-minute trip (later reissues split the longer ragas across 45-RPM sides for maximum groove). Every track follows the same recipe: relentless 808 disco beat at 125–135 BPM, hypnotic 303 lines sliding up and down raga scales like a snake on Red Bull, and Jupiter-8 floating ethereal leads on top. It’s repetitive in the best way—like someone discovered trance, acid, and minimal techno all at once but decided to call it “disco.”

Standouts:

Raga Bhairav – Opens with that vocoded “Om Namah Shivaya” chant. Instant portal to another dimension.

Raga Lalit – Pure sunrise energy, the 303 does things Roland never intended.

Raga Bhupali – Bright and hopeful, like acid house on holiday.

Raga Megh Malhar – The rain raga, moody and dripping (pun intended).

Raga Madhuvanti – The one that makes hardcore techno heads weep.

Raga Bairagi – Dark, introspective, almost industrial.

It’s not “disco” in the Bee Gees sense—more like if an Indian classical musician got locked in a studio with early house gear and no instruction manuals. The 303’s famous “glissando” (portamento) function, which Phuture would later abuse for acid lines, is used here to perfectly mimic the sliding microtones of ragas. Total happy accident.

The Ultimate “History Is Written by the Victors (and Crate-Diggers)” Story

In 1983 India, this was just another weird synth experiment that didn’t sell. In the West? It rewrote electronic music history.

Proto-Acid House on Steroids: Phuture’s “Acid Tracks” (1987) is usually credited as ground zero. Charanjit did the same sound—303 + 808 + resonance sweeps—in 1982. Coincidence? Absolutely. Influence? Zero, because nobody outside Bombay heard it. But the parallels are spooky.

First Known Full Album Use of the TB-303 in This Style: The 303 was marketed as a bass-guitar replacement and flopped hard. Charanjit was one of the first humans on Earth to make it sing like this.

East-Meets-West Fusion Done Right: Before “world music” was a marketing term, he nailed the ultimate Indo-electronic hybrid without pandering or exotic clichés.

Reissue Mania: Bombay Connection’s 2010 deluxe double-LP (gorgeous gatefold, 45-RPM sides) sold out instantly and still fetches silly money. It launched a thousand “wait, what?!” articles, put Charanjit on festival stages in his 70s, and turned him into a hero for every bedroom producer who ever felt ahead of their time.

Today it’s a cornerstone of any serious electronic collection—up there with Kraftwerk, Giorgio Moroder, and the Chicago originators. It inspired a wave of “global acid” revivalists, proved that genius can hide in the unlikeliest places (a Bollywood wedding band leader!), and gave us the best “accidental pioneer” story ever.

So next time someone lectures you about acid house starting in a Chicago warehouse, just smile, cue up Raga Bhairav, and watch their brain melt. Charanjit Singh didn’t mean to invent the future—he was just trying to make a quick buck on disco. Turns out he made immortality instead.

Rest in power, uncle-ji. The 303 is still squelching in your honor.