Pages

June 17, 2011

Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat - Charanjit Singh [1982]





Not le festival du fromage suggested by "disco beat" come on. Instead, prescient and enormously satisfying feast of raga upp'ed Giorgio Moroder arpeggiated synth lines. 


Here's Geeta:


"Last week, some friends of mine in New York and London — friends with very good taste in electronic music — told me I absolutely had to listen to 10 Ragas to a Disco Beat, a new reissue on the Dutch label Bombay Connection. The word going around the Internet is that this album, full of 808-driven beats and TB-303 squelches, was recorded by a Sikh fellow by the name of Charanjit Singh in India in 1982 — predating the Chicago acid house revolution of the mid-1980s. To put the year 1982 in perspective, the Detroit techno godfathers Cybotron released “Alleys of Your Mind,” their first single, just one year before, in ’81. 1982 was also the year that MIDI, the “musical instrument digital interface,” was introduced — but it wouldn’t be until 1983 that the MIDI was actually being used; the first synths to utilize MIDI were the Prophet 600 and the Roland JX3P, both in ’83. Electronic music as we know it now had some way to go.


The album — stripped-down, instrumental electronic arrangements of traditional Indian ragas — is fantastic. ‘Disco beat’ is a bit of a misnomer. Most of the ragas here feel like they clock in at around 130 bpm. This is techno speed."



Oddi wrth y brawd

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Looks like an interesting mutation...thanks for the chance to hear it.

Hans Hansen said...

really good,thanks for this!

smiinit said...

82 wir? mae'n swnio fel glastonbury '92 i mi! Ond rhaid i mi gyfadde, 'on i'n ddawnsio i'r swn yr generator yn 1992.... bangin innit

Y Brawd said...

It's when you find yourself quietly grooving to the sound of your own household fridge (and getting a buzz when the motor "ticks over") that it's time t worry.

Unknown said...

Charanjit Singh Vs. Heems of Das Racist - Live November 2012: http://www.facebook.com/charanjitsingh2012