Charanjit Singh – Ten Ragas To A Disco Beat

In Indian classical music a raga is set of notes and melodic fragments that provide a framework for a soloist to improvise in. The goal is to create rasa, a specific feeling, through music. Hundreds of ragas exist, each with their own perceived personality that is thought to affect the emotion of the audience.

Inexplicably, in 1982, Bollywood session musician Charanjit Singh purchased the new Roland TB 303, and, satisfied with the results when synched it to his Jupiter 8 synthesizer and 808 drum machine, booked time at a Mumbai recording studio. The resulting Ten Ragas To A Disco Beat, is at once charming while also one of the rarest, strangest, and most forward looking albums ever. Hearing ragas performed on synthesizers didn't go over particularly well in India at the time, but today the album can sell for thousands of dollars, and many now credit Singh as the pioneer of acid house music five years before the genre emerged in Chicago.

Track three, "Raga Bhoopali," is one of the three basic ragas traditionally taught to new students. It is said to connote peace and calm, corresponding to the hours of early evening.

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