How the gear-obsessed Indian musician and composer Charanjit Singh fused ancient ragas with a brand-new synthesiser and arrived years early to acid house.

In 1982, a Bollywood session musician and wedding-band performer from Bombay (now Mumbai) released one of the first albums to employ the Roland TB-303 synthesiser. On Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat, Charanjit Singh reimagined the Indian classical tradition of ragas, replacing the tabla with the squelchy, low-end rhythms of the 303 to unwittingly arrive at a sound eerily similar to acid house several years before it emerged from Chicago. Since Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat’s rediscovery at the start of the 2010s, the album has retained the power to surprise anyone who thought the history of electronic music was a closed book. Jeremy Loudenback and Arshia Haq, co-curators of the diasporic Discostan club collective, who also wrote the liner notes for a new reissue of Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat, unpack the making, dismissal and resurrection of a musical legend.

Charanjit Singh came from a musical family 

By the 1960s, Singh, whose musical curiosity and ability were shaped by growing up in a family of instrument makers, was on his way to a prolific career in Bollywood, playing on hundreds of celebrated film scores. At that time, soundtracks involved dozens of musicians overseen by an arranger and music director. With his ability to play many different instruments, Singh was highly sought-after, favoured by leading Bollywood composers of the 1960s and 1970s, including Laxmikant-Pyarelal, RD Burman and Bappi Lahiri. Though often uncredited, Singh’s musical fingerprints can be heard on some of the greatest songs of Bollywood’s golden era, including the Asha Bhosle-fronted 1971 psychedelic hit Dum Maro Dum.

He was always a gear nerd…

By the late 60s, Singh was touring internationally in bands for some of India’s biggest playback singers, including Kishore Kumar. During trips across Europe and North America, Singh sought out the latest musical trends and instruments. He brought home the clavioline and Transichord – predecessors to analogue synthesisers. Access to these futuristic sounds prompted Singh to release records under his own name. During solo live shows at this time, he would set up a rhythm box and play filmi melodies on his Transichord.

… which led him to the TB-303

Every tour was an opportunity to buy and experiment with new gear. Several times, Singh played in the house band on a cruise ship that shuttled between Chennai and Singapore. That’s how he found his way to Singapore’s Swee Lee Music Company in 1982. Singh learned about the shop’s newest item, the Roland TB-303. The analogue bass synthesiser had just been released in 1981, and unlike the TR-808 drum machine, there was no precedent for how to use it. Already used to performing one-man shows, Singh could instantly see its potential.

It gave him a shot at artistic freedom

When Singh sat down at HMV Studios in Bombay to record Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat, he already had a fully formed vision and, by all accounts, the songs were put to tape in just two days. At the time, Singh was at a creative tipping point. He had grown tired of the hectic schedule and limited creative opportunities of being a Bollywood session player. Encouraged by his partner Suparna Das, a former dancer, Singh found the confidence to record a concept album at a time when there was little space for cutting-edge albums outside the Bollywood studio system.

He used the 303 to reimagine a 2,000-year-old sound

In 1982, the futuristic sound of electronic disco featured heavily in Bollywood’s most popular soundtracks, including some that Singh played on. But for Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat, Singh wanted to share his love of ragas, a musical tradition stretching back 2,000 years. During his time in the family music shop, Singh learned classical forms on the bulbul tarang and was no stranger to performances by Ravi Shankar and Hariprasad Chaurasia. You can hear the way Singh incorporates traditional tropes on tracks like Raga Meghmalhar, where he creates synthesised thunder sounds, a deliberate callback to that raga’s invocation of heavy rainstorms.

He was (too far) ahead of his time

Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat quickly disappeared into the ether, too experimental for most Bollywood fans, and too dissimilar from the western pop music that had a following in India. After its release, Singh continued to explore the possibilities of his new rig. In 1985, he again brought his acid sound into collaboration with the classical tradition. Uncredited, Singh laid down drum machine and 303 flourishes alongside Chaurasia’s meditative flute playing on the latter’s Eternity album. Like Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat, the album was ahead of its time, mixing folk with electronic sounds. Singh produced several other LPs that continued his electronic explorations.

Its rediscovery confused everyone

After finding Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat in a New Delhi bazaar in 2002, Amsterdam collector Edo Bouman began a furious search for its creator. Bouman reissued the record in 2010 on his Bombay Connection label to rave reviews. Remastered with crisp clarity, the record also elicited much bewilderment. How were these sounds possible in India in 1982, at least five years before acid house? Was Charanjit Singh even real? Despite rumours that the album was an elaborate hoax, the fanfare created an enduring mythology. 

It prompted a wave of speculation

A 2010 review in the Guardian suggested, half-jokingly, that the reissued album was a hoax, “cooked up by some Aphex Twin-style techno joker”. At the time, retromania was in full swing, and several electronic artists were creating throwback music using original analogue gear. As a result, Ceephax Acid Crew, Luke Vibert and even Bouman himself were mistakenly identified in articles and message boards as the actual creators of Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat.

Singh thought acid house was derivative 

Enigmatic and reserved, Singh did not immediately emerge into public view until some time after the reissue, adding to the mystery. Eventually, in 2012, Singh toured Europe, playing the album on vintage gear. For his part, Singh was a little dismissive of both the acid house pioneers and contemporary DJs with whom he shared stages during his tour. He once told an interviewer that classic tracks from 1980s Chicago were a bit simple: “What I played were ragas – there’s a lot of variation.”

The album has since become hugely influential

Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat has had an enduring impact on contemporary DJs and producers from the subcontinent, such as Sanaya Ardeshir and Arushi Jain, as well as acts like Dar Disku. For many, the idea that an album from 1980s Bombay has been placed in the canon of electronic music is a source of national pride. Singh was also a pioneer in breaking out of the country’s rigid musical ecosystem, in which many artists had limited opportunities to express their creative visions. Today, Singh is seen as a vanguard of electronic music coming out of the Global South.