Charanjit Singh (musician)

This article is about the musician. For the hockey player, see Charanjit Singh. For the politician, see Charanjit Singh Atwal.

Charanjit Singh is a musician from Mumbai, India, who performed in numerous Bollywood soundtrack orchestras in the 1960s and 1970s. He led a wedding band and recorded and released a number of albums covering popular film songs. These were a form of instrumental elevator music, some of which have since been re-released by Sublime Frequencies, such as his steel guitar renditions of "Manje Re" from Bandhe Haath in 1973 and "Chura Liyaa Hai Tumne" from Yaadon Ki Baaraat in 1975. In 1981, he produced synthesizer-based electronic renditions of the Silsila soundtrack in his record Charanjit Singh: Plays Hit Tunes on Synthesizer of Silsila.

Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat, an album of original electronic disco compositions Singh recorded in 1982, was a commercial failure at the time of its original release, but its re-discovery in 2002 and re-issue in early 2010 garnered attention due to its resemblance to music from the acid house genre of the late 1980s. Since then, certain commentators in the music press have hailed Singh as a pioneer of acid house. He also used the same drum machine and synthesizers for his experimental electronic calypso record, Experiments in Calypso.

Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat

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Charanjit Singh is best known for his 1982 release Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat, an album originally intended as a fusion of electronic disco music with Indian classical Ragas. Some music journalists have speculated that it is perhaps the earliest example of acid house because it pre-dates Phuture's seminal "Acid Tracks" (1987) by five years.

Since its 2010 re-release, the album has been critically acclaimed in the music press. Besides comparisons with acid house, some have also described it as an early example of house music, techno, and acid techno, and compared it to the work of contemporary electronic dance musicians such as Ceephax, Phuture 303, and Aphex Twin. This has led some to regard Singh's record as being "far ahead" of its time. The German electronic music act Âme included a remix of the track "Raga Meghmalhar" in their 2011 release FACT mix 212.

Production and release

Singh produced Ten Ragas using the following three electronic musical instruments from Japan's Roland Corporation: the Jupiter-8 synthesizer, TR-808 drum machine, and TB-303 bass synthesizer. It was one of the first records to use the TB-303, a machine that has become synonymous with acid house. Soon after it had been released in Japan at the end of 1981, he had brought the TB-303 from Singapore when it was still new. He didn't know much about the three machines at first, so he spent much time in figuring out how to use them, and eventually discovered that it was possible to synchronize the TR-808 and TB-303 with the Jupiter-8 keyboard. According to Singh: "At home I practised with the combination and I thought 'It sounds good – why not record it'." While the TB-303 was originally designed to fill in for a bass guitar, it was awkward when it came to reproducing conventional basslines, so he found a different way to employ the machine, particularly its glissando function which made it suitable for reproducing the Indian Raga melodies.

Besides Indian raga music, he also took inspiration from contemporary Bollywood film music, specifically the Indian electronic disco scene that had only just become popular in the early 1980s (sparked by the success of Pakistani pop singer Nazia Hassan and Indian producer Biddu), at a time when disco's popularity had declined in the West by that time. The continued relevance of disco in India and the increasing reliance on synthesizers led to experiments in minimalist electronic disco, such as the "futuristic electro feel" of R.D. Burman's "Dil Lena Khel Hai Dildar Ka" (Zamane Ko Dikhana Hai, 1981) and the higher tempo of Bappi Lahari's "Yaad Aa Raha Hai" (Disco Dancer, 1982) approaching a somewhat "techno wavelength." Such developments eventually culminated in the work of Singh, who increased the tempo of the beats found in Bollywood disco music up to a "techno wavelength" and made them more minimalistic, while pairing them with "mystical, repetitive, instrumental Indian ragas" using his new equipment setup to produce a sound resembling acid house. According to Singh: "There was lots of disco music in films back in 1982. So I thought why not do something different using disco music only. I got an idea to play all the Indian ragas and give the beat a disco beat – and turn off the tabla. And I did it. And it turned out good." The first track "Raga Bhairavi" also features a synthesized voice that says “Om Namah Shivaya” through a vocoder.

The album was released under the label Gramophone Company of India (now Sa Re Ga Ma), having been recorded at their HMV Studio in Bombay (now Mumbai) in 1982. Following the LP record's release in 1982, it garnered some interest in India, finding its way onto Indian national radio, but it became a commercial failure and was largely forgotten until recent years. However, Singh may have played a role in popularizing electronic music in Bollywood at the time, and a somewhat similar "techno-sounding interlude" had later appeared in Lahiri's song "Kasam Paida Karne Wale Ki" from the film of the same name in 1984.

Track listing

Both the original 1982 and 1983 LP records and the 2010 CD and LP re-releases contain the following tracks:

• "Raga Bhairavi"
• "Raga Lalit"
• "Raga Bhupali"
• "Raga Todi"
• "Raga Madhuvanti"
• "Raga Meghmalhar"
• "Raga Yaman"
• "Raga Kalavati"
• "Raga Malkauns"
• "Raga Bairagi"

External links

• Pattison, Louis (10 Apr 2010). "Charanjit Singh, acid house pioneer". The Guardian.