Synthesizing : 10 Ragas To A Disco Beat

Charnjit Singh

Synthesizing : 10 Ragas To A Disco Beat

 

2010

Bhairav

Madhuvanti

Bairagi

Malkauns

Meghmalhar

  • MWX027

‘This is so ab­solute­ly bril­liant and bonk­ers, that when we first heard it, we thought it must be fake, some modern day Re­phlex art­ist putt­ing every­one on, tak­ing the piss, with a “raga-techno” album sup­posed­ly from the early ‘80s. But, no joke, this is the real thing! In 1982, Charan­jit Singh, a fam­ous Bol­lywood com­pos­er (he was featured on Sub­lime Frequen­cies amaz­ing Bol­lywood Steel Guitar com­pila­tion), had a plan to trans­late an­cient tradition­al In­dian class­ical ragas to the syn­thesiz­er. Using the very syn­ths that would later de­fine Acid House (Rolands TB-303 and TR-808!), Singh un­wit­ting­ly created a proto-acid mas­terpiece, be­fore the tech­no genre ever ex­is­ted. Since only a hundred or less co­p­ies were made original­ly, this re­lease was most­ly a rumor since its crea­tion. We vague­ly re­memb­er Drew Daniel from Mat­mos talk­ing about it on Pitchfork, a co­u­ple of years back, say­ing some­one should re­is­sue it, but we weren’t ready for how in­credib­le and ahead of its time it sounds. Im­agine if Kraftwerk (or even Oneohtrix Point Never) star­ted com­pos­ing music for a Bol­lywood Rave. Or im­agine a more raga-inspired take on an­oth­er proto-acid clas­sic, Manu­el Gottsching’s epic E2-E4. While the “disco” rhy­thms are fast and frenetic and don’t rea­l­ly vary that much bet­ween tracks (they’re not rea­l­ly disco beats per se, but more akin to acid’s tran­cey boun­ce), the synth flouris­hes and squelches of the raga over the top are soar­ing and floaty, mak­ing the tracks de­lirious­ly hy­pnotic. Cap­tur­ing acid house’s lyser­gic trans­cend­ence but with an out­sider’s economy that re­fuses to date it specifical­ly to the era. While we only have the doub­le lp, there will be a cd re­lease some­time in the next month or so. But don’t sleep on the vinyl too long as it’s high­ly li­mited, and we guaran­tee there is not an­oth­er re­lease quite like this one in your col­lec­tion.’ - Aquarius Re­cords Re­view.

The 2 LPs are housed in a be­auti­ful gatefold sleeve, li­st­en to select sound sam­ples below…