Acid House Pioneeer Charanjit Singh Dies at 75

Charanjit Singh, an Indian keyboardist and guitarist who many consider to have been at the forefront of acid house, died Sunday (July 5) in his home in Mumbai. He was 75.

Singh inadvertently helped pioneer acid music with his 1982 album, Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat, in which he reimagined traditional Indian ragas with the Roland TR-808 drum machine and Roland TB-303 bass synthesizer, a foundational element in the genre.

However, the album was met poorly upon its release in India and faded into obscurity until record collector Edo Bouman rediscovered the album in 2002 and reissued it in 2010 on his label, Bombay Connection. It then received widespread recognition and many heralded Singh as a trailblazer in the acid house movement.

“There was lots of disco music back in 1982,” Sing told the Guardian in 2011. “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.”

Over the course of his career, Singh also contributed to several Bollywood film soundtracks in the ‘60s and ‘70s and recorded albums featuring covers of popular Indian songs. According to the Wire, at the time of his death, Singh was scheduled to play a concert in London and was working on an album of Indian folk songs.

Charanjit Singh – "Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat"