Electronic / Experimental

Pt. 2 of the 'Dub me crazy' series by Mad Professor. Reggae meets twisted electronics for wild dub trips! Originally released in 1982 on the same Ariwa imprint. True D.I.Y. business from this UK dub pioneer.

Recorded & mixed at Ariwa Sound Studio, Peckham Published by Ariwa Music. Track A2 "Fast Forward Into Dub": was used as a sample in the song "Blue Room" by The Orb.

An album etched not only in the history of Japanese rock but also in the history of rock worldwide!A miraculous sound that never ages!Due to popular demand, re-released on clear vinyl!

●Why did the world's avant-garde musicians want to create "sound" with Conny Plank back then? The album "Phew" (released in 1981) was produced at the legendary Conny's Studio, which spawned masterpieces by Kraftwerk, Neu!, DAF, Eno, and others, with former Aunt Sally member Phew joining them.

●Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit, former members of the German rock band Can, who had a great influence on techno and post-rock, participated.

●Conny Plank's outstanding engineering and Holger Czukay's ingenious editing created a groundbreaking sound world that still resonates uniquely and never fades even today.

Selected tracks from the album are featured in Hideo Kojima’s video game, Death Stranding 2: On The Beach.

Selected tracks from the album are featured in Hideo Kojima’s video game, Death Stranding 2: On The Beach.

The 2 songs are remixed by south London-based artist Klein (Hyperdub), and Tokyo-based experimental hiphop musician Killer Bong (Black Smoker Records) Mastered by Bunsho Nishikawa, who is known for his works with goat and Tenniscoats, among others. The ominous clockwork nursery song “Kazega Fuitara Sayonara” (Goodbye When The Wind Blows) was originally written by Koichi Yamanoha and released under the name of Grimm Grimm via Kevin Shields (My Bloody Valentine) and Charlotte Marionneau (Le Volume Courbe)’s Pickpocket Records / Honest Jons in 2014. London-based Tokyo-born singer-songwriter experimentalist Koichi Yamanoha has been operating under the guise of Grimm Grimm since 2013. The project is an outlet for his fragile, haunted, otherworldly forays into baroque folk, futurist lyricism and electroacoustic oddities. His debut album, “Hazy Eyes Maybe”, was released by ATP Recordings in 2015. A track “Last Word Is Mine” from the album was used over the end credits for the Aaron Brookner / Jim Jarmusch directed documentary film “Uncle Howard” (2016), featuring William Burroughs. His sophomore album, “Cliffhanger” was released in June 2018. And currently the 3rd album has been mixed and co-produced by Marta Salogni. The virtual 3D music video for Klein remix has been directed and edited by London based film maker Kenichi Iwasa. He filmed the footage in Tottenham using Super 8, 3rd generation iPhone and 4K Camera, and created the zero zone virtual world with glitchy SFX work by William Cunningham. Iwasa is also known for his legendary Krautrock Karaoke night as well as being a sought after collaborator throughout Europe.

Not only have Chicago’s electronic trio Purelink released on labels such as Lillerne Tape Club and Naff, they’ve also contributed a mix for Resident Advisor, marking them as one of the city’s most essential new acts. Their much-discussed release of the year on revered imprint Peak Oil is finally in stock. Centered on serene, minimal chillbient, the record delicately traces faint light seeping into deserted urban spaces and lingering echoes at the edges of a world that has lost its words. Textures dissolved in delay and reverb resonate like distant prayers drifting between city and self, while faint melodies and the sway of sub-bass create a deeply intimate immersion. A work that hovers between ambient and post-club, standing as Purelink’s poetic resistance and a defining statement of their aesthetic.

Limited edition of 200 copies. Merzbow is a Japanoise legend who has been advocating and practicing thoroughgoing ahimsa. This is the first analogue/cassette version of their very popular CD-only release "Door Open At 8 AM" released in 1999. Recorded at his home studio, Bedroom, Tokyo, in April/May 1998 using EMS VCS3, EMS Synthi 'A', Moog Rogue, Theremin, etc., this is a career-defining album. Recorded around the same time as one of Merzbow's most adventurous works, Aqua, it pays homage to the free jazz musicians he admires. Tony Williams and John Coltrane were also sampled. Remastered at Munemihouse in 2020. Remastered at Munemihouse in 2020 with new artwork by himself. Includes additional bonus tracks.

To celebrate 20 years of this incredible album by Masami Akita, we are doing a limited edition gatefold vinyl pressing on baby pink colored vinyl limited to 300 copies worldwide.

New esclusive recordings by the one and only master of Japanoise!

All Music by Masami Akita

Recorded at Munemihouse, Tokyo 2024-2025

Mixed at Munemihouse, January 2026

Artwork by AI Generated ©️MA 2026

Two new A/B trax pressed to wax, in a limited edition. Inspired by the activist and legend Steve Biko, "Look Anew" gives two dubs, one deep and the other dubby. Where do we go from here? Packaged in a classic reverse board sleeve, with original artwork by Tsuji Aiko, pressed on 180g black wax. Mastered by Stephan Mathieu.

Perhaps the most interesting PAN in a minute; ‘Lila’ is the label debut from Paris-based Algerian Mohamed Bourouissa, best known as a visual artist but now offering a glimpse into his musical practice for the first time, blending highly unusual ambient pulses with autotuned, low-lit vocals, recorded on the fly using a keyboard, mixer, microphone and effects. It runs like some lost 1980’s private press, tipped FFO early Yves Tumor, Yungwebster, Space Afrika, AYYA, Future, Kareem Lotfy. Bourouissa’s first solo album finds the 48 year old artist capturing the permeable membrane between Paris' various communities through a dream diary of hazed ambient reflections, cloud rap inversions and bass-heavy club malfunctions. It follows his work over decades incorporating music as a phantom thread of his practice in photography, sculpture, and video, and perfectly conveys a sense of longing and melancholy central to Arabic classical and pop songs mediated via an electronic hypermodernism . The album is an intimate, sometimes unsettling experience, aptly described as “hypnagogic” by PAN, as heard in its tendency to dreamlike slowness and the layered haze of FX and xenharmonic chords that shroud and wreath his melismatic woes. The dozen tracks play out through autotuned vocal plumes familiar from work by Ayshay, Rainy Miller or Future, crossed with the type of deep blooz oozing from that superb Taymour x Bareetlblad turn on the diy label earlier this year. Each track taps a different pole into the album's landscape, one beatless, and one filled with machinegun toms and explosive snares. The beatless tracks are peculiarly stirring and the heavier, noisier moments somehow vanish into the same aether. Bourouissa peppers the album with wild twists and turns, hitting a dark alley on the anxiety-inducing 'NMB' and descending corrugated steps to a members-only basement on 'MN'. The relief comes with the title track, a collaboration with Fanigliulo (aka Mushy) that's a tender, hopeful moment - a clouded love song that injects some hope into the darkness.

SML is the quintet of bassist Anna Butterss, synthesist Jeremiah Chiu, saxophonist Josh Johnson, percussionist Booker Stardrum, and guitarist Gregory Uhlmann. Their debut album 'Small Medium Large' began as a collection of long form improvisations recorded during two separate two-night stands at beloved Highland Park, Los Angeles venue ETA. Unfortunately, this major development site for the burgeoning new West Coast jazz & improvised music sound closed its doors permanently at the end of 2023. The venue, perhaps best known outside of LA for Jeff Parker's 2022 album 'Mondays at the Enfield Tennis Academy', was the perfect location for the start of SML, especially given that both bassist Anna Butterss and saxophonist Josh Johnson are part of Parker's quartet that held down a regular gig at ETA since the venue's early days (and hence thoroughly documented, heard on Parker's album). 'Small Medium Large' was engineered and recorded in stereo direct to Nagra by Bryce Gonzales and compiled, arranged, and edited with additional production, recording, and studio composition by SML across their various home studios. While editing, chopping, and rearranging stereo mixed improvisations is hardly a new idea (for a modern and relevant example we can look to Makaya McCraven's output on IARC) these results are a stunning expansion of the Teo Macero / Miles Davis editing concept explored on classics like 'In a Silent Way', 'On The Corner', and 'Get Up With It'. Stylistically though, these recordings have more in common with the proto-trance repetitions of Harmonia, and with Holgar Czukay's re-assembly technique used in his work with Can. Throw in a supremely intuitive utilization of polyrhythmic floating patterns (a la Susumu Yokota), and the result is a truly innovative take on time-clocked electronic rhythms augmented with live instrumentation that never loses that elusive human sway. 'Small Medium Large' is a sublime assemblage of circulatory grooves and textural anomalies, at different moments recalling the synth-laced improvisations of Herbie Hancock's Sextant, the jagged dance punk of Essential Logic, the rhythmic revelry of Fela Kuti, the low-end elasticity of Parliament/Funkadelic, or the glitchy dub techno of Pole. Taken in totality, the album captures a euphoric creative synchronicity between some of today's most exciting musicians.

Japanese Edition with Obi. A band that has risen to become a representative of the scene proves its further evolution
A milestone of 90's alternative music.

Japanese Edition with Obi. The album is one of the most influential albums of the post-rock, electronica, and “acoustic school” that followed.

A masterpiece that defined OPN's reputation, where digital sound and serene beauty coexist!

Arriving at the third edition of the jungle series, we're relying yet once again on oldschool techniques, limited memory, and an absolute defiance of progression, unless we consider consistent values of anarchy a benchmark. A testament to tenement tagging, with bulletin synth lines, rubberized basslines, and an ever-changing palette of drum breaks, here we arrive at a place where we once were, and never were. Limited edition 12", mastered by Stephan Mathieu, Edition of 200 copies.

Intentions, megiapa’s lush and emotionally layered debut album, feels less like a collection of songs and more like a living archive of transformation. Across its warm synths, fluttering basslines, meditative voice notes and spiritual grooves, the Los Angeles-based producer, vocalist and composer maps the uncertain terrain between heartbreak, healing, fear and surrender. The album’s title is genuine. “The record is literally my intentions,” she says. “It’s a representation of my intentions, my dreams over the last five years or so.” Those years carried the weight of upheaval: the pandemic, the collapse of a long-term relationship, a move away from Chicago, and the disorientation that follows when the structure of your life suddenly disappears beneath you. But Intentions never sounds defeated. Instead, it radiates the quiet confidence of someone learning to trust herself in real time. That trust is embedded in the music’s very construction. Before this album, megiapa largely worked alone, making instrumentals in solitude, creating loops and fragments for herself without much thought toward public consumption. “These were just beats that I made for myself,” she explains. “It was my personal thing.” During the pandemic, she gained attention for her diddies series — brief, playful sketches often completed in a single evening. While those tracks carried an improvisatory charm, Intentions represents something deeper: patience. “What if I spend time with my music?” she remembers asking herself. The earliest pieces on Intentions date back to 2020 and 2021, but the album gradually evolved into something larger than its creator initially imagined. A grant from the city of Chicago helped push the project toward completion during one of the most unstable periods of her life. “I made a difficult decision that completely changed the stability I knew,” she says. “And so the record really is a representation of me returning to myself and gathering all these ideas and desires into one final offering.” That sense of accumulation defines the album’s beauty, as it feels handmade in the truest sense: every synth patch, vocal harmony and drum pattern carries the residue of lived experience. As a result, the collaborators surrounding megiapa function as witnesses to her becoming. Bassist The Growth Eternal and keyboardist Ahmad Muhammad (also known as Kafari) help ground the music in a deep-pocketed warmth, while drummer Mekala Session gives several tracks their stormy propulsion. Elsewhere, contributions from Blvck Spvde, Aankha Neal, Telemakus, Aisha Mars and 10.4 ROG add texture to songs already rich with feeling. For megiapa, creative partnership became part of the lesson. “Do I continue to take up space on this track,” she recalls asking herself, “or do I allow the piano to shine through?” Learning when to step back and let the music breathe became an act of growth. Right away, “Open Your Eyes,” produced by 10.4 ROG , sets the project’s fervent tone. Floating atop bright keys and an incessant chime, the song invites listeners toward reflection without losing its breezy accessibility. “Everything we need is within us,” she says of the track’s message. “We all reflect each other.” It’s the kind of statement that could sound overly sentimental in less capable hands, but megiapa delivers it with grounded sincerity. Elsewhere, Intentions reveals its bruises more directly. “Can’t Believe” — featuring Resavoir’s Will Miller on EVI, horn and piano — confronts the wreckage of a relationship with startling honesty, pairing Roland 808-inspired drums with aching reflections about longing for something that ultimately could not survive. “I can’t believe what I wanted,” she sings at the song’s center. Yet even here, the album isn’t bitter. The pain becomes a nudge to strive higher. That tension between disquiet and faith reaches its apex on “Crashing Down,” one of the album’s most resonant moments. Written during a Mexico retreat amid the chaos of the pandemic, the song emerged almost like a mantra. When she later revisited the song during periods of upheaval, the lyrics sounded like a prophecy. Intentions is also deeply informed by Black spiritual thought and cosmic possibility. Tracks like “(_(_on_the_spaceway_)_)” and “on the spaceway (frfr)” channel the liberatory philosophies of Sun Ra, imagining expansiveness beyond earthly limitation. “I imagine Black people in this spaceway just enjoying themselves in their full expansiveness,” she explains. In that sense, the album joins a lineage of Black experimental music that treats joy itself as resistance. Though International Anthem may seem like an unexpected home for the project, the partnership makes sense. The label has supported megiapa since her earliest days in Chicago, with figures like Alejandro “King Hippo” Ayala encouraging her long before the wider world caught on. “It’s like putting music out with my family at this point,” she says. By the time Intentions concludes, what remains is the feeling of having accompanied someone through a profound shift. The album asks listeners to relinquish their fear of the unknown. Again and again, megiapa returns to the same guiding principle: trust the process; everything will work out. “Fear is a hindrance to our dreams and our goals and the beauty of life,” she says. “Please dream with me. Please take a moment to reflect. And please be okay with things being uncertain.” On Intentions, this state becomes its own kind of freedom.

Intentions, megiapa’s lush and emotionally layered debut album, feels less like a collection of songs and more like a living archive of transformation. Across its warm synths, fluttering basslines, meditative voice notes and spiritual grooves, the Los Angeles-based producer, vocalist and composer maps the uncertain terrain between heartbreak, healing, fear and surrender. The album’s title is genuine. “The record is literally my intentions,” she says. “It’s a representation of my intentions, my dreams over the last five years or so.” Those years carried the weight of upheaval: the pandemic, the collapse of a long-term relationship, a move away from Chicago, and the disorientation that follows when the structure of your life suddenly disappears beneath you. But Intentions never sounds defeated. Instead, it radiates the quiet confidence of someone learning to trust herself in real time. That trust is embedded in the music’s very construction. Before this album, megiapa largely worked alone, making instrumentals in solitude, creating loops and fragments for herself without much thought toward public consumption. “These were just beats that I made for myself,” she explains. “It was my personal thing.” During the pandemic, she gained attention for her diddies series — brief, playful sketches often completed in a single evening. While those tracks carried an improvisatory charm, Intentions represents something deeper: patience. “What if I spend time with my music?” she remembers asking herself. The earliest pieces on Intentions date back to 2020 and 2021, but the album gradually evolved into something larger than its creator initially imagined. A grant from the city of Chicago helped push the project toward completion during one of the most unstable periods of her life. “I made a difficult decision that completely changed the stability I knew,” she says. “And so the record really is a representation of me returning to myself and gathering all these ideas and desires into one final offering.” That sense of accumulation defines the album’s beauty, as it feels handmade in the truest sense: every synth patch, vocal harmony and drum pattern carries the residue of lived experience. As a result, the collaborators surrounding megiapa function as witnesses to her becoming. Bassist The Growth Eternal and keyboardist Ahmad Muhammad (also known as Kafari) help ground the music in a deep-pocketed warmth, while drummer Mekala Session gives several tracks their stormy propulsion. Elsewhere, contributions from Blvck Spvde, Aankha Neal, Telemakus, Aisha Mars and 10.4 ROG add texture to songs already rich with feeling. For megiapa, creative partnership became part of the lesson. “Do I continue to take up space on this track,” she recalls asking herself, “or do I allow the piano to shine through?” Learning when to step back and let the music breathe became an act of growth. Right away, “Open Your Eyes,” produced by 10.4 ROG , sets the project’s fervent tone. Floating atop bright keys and an incessant chime, the song invites listeners toward reflection without losing its breezy accessibility. “Everything we need is within us,” she says of the track’s message. “We all reflect each other.” It’s the kind of statement that could sound overly sentimental in less capable hands, but megiapa delivers it with grounded sincerity. Elsewhere, Intentions reveals its bruises more directly. “Can’t Believe” — featuring Resavoir’s Will Miller on EVI, horn and piano — confronts the wreckage of a relationship with startling honesty, pairing Roland 808-inspired drums with aching reflections about longing for something that ultimately could not survive. “I can’t believe what I wanted,” she sings at the song’s center. Yet even here, the album isn’t bitter. The pain becomes a nudge to strive higher. That tension between disquiet and faith reaches its apex on “Crashing Down,” one of the album’s most resonant moments. Written during a Mexico retreat amid the chaos of the pandemic, the song emerged almost like a mantra. When she later revisited the song during periods of upheaval, the lyrics sounded like a prophecy. Intentions is also deeply informed by Black spiritual thought and cosmic possibility. Tracks like “(_(_on_the_spaceway_)_)” and “on the spaceway (frfr)” channel the liberatory philosophies of Sun Ra, imagining expansiveness beyond earthly limitation. “I imagine Black people in this spaceway just enjoying themselves in their full expansiveness,” she explains. In that sense, the album joins a lineage of Black experimental music that treats joy itself as resistance. Though International Anthem may seem like an unexpected home for the project, the partnership makes sense. The label has supported megiapa since her earliest days in Chicago, with figures like Alejandro “King Hippo” Ayala encouraging her long before the wider world caught on. “It’s like putting music out with my family at this point,” she says. By the time Intentions concludes, what remains is the feeling of having accompanied someone through a profound shift. The album asks listeners to relinquish their fear of the unknown. Again and again, megiapa returns to the same guiding principle: trust the process; everything will work out. “Fear is a hindrance to our dreams and our goals and the beauty of life,” she says. “Please dream with me. Please take a moment to reflect. And please be okay with things being uncertain.” On Intentions, this state becomes its own kind of freedom.

Cult digidub mutators Froid Dub slow their steez to deeply knackered, ghostly levels on a follow-up to joints with Krikor and Ransom Note. Back with Parisian patrons Delodio, the pair bring a deep studio knowledge earned since the ‘90s (and their days together as Bosco) to a half hour of purposefully sluggish pressure slanted at the earliest or latest hours of the night/day. With Black Roots Players’ ‘Slow Tempo’ riddim possibly in the back of their mind, they keep it all heavily downbeat and rent with a psychoacoustic nous that draws lines between The Black Ark, GRM, and DJ Screw. ‘Deep’ feels like the onset of a space cake, all super blunted vox and wiggy synths, and ‘The Swap’ snaps tightly to slowed digidub templates, next to echoes of ’Slow Tempo’ in the cranky chords of the title tune. They really let the bass flare in acres of space on the spangled zingers ‘Too Digital’ and an acidic ‘Love’, whilst crossing lines with Full Circle’s proto-goa trance in ‘Diggin’’ and the swampy motion of ‘No Sense’.

Sooj — a collaborative project between members of Duster and Dirty Art Club. Picking up where their 2024 two-sider Anhedonia II b/w Ecstasy Cowgirl left off, Crusher sees Duster’s slowcore drift dissolve into Dirty Art Club’s sample-heavy, collage-minded production. The result is neither band, nor side project, but something more elusive — a third space built from tape hiss, chopped memory, and late-night signal bleed. Across its runtime, the album avoids the gravitational pull of nostalgia. Instead, it hovers in a liminal present — part collaboration, part escape route.

Two raw minimal cuts from '94 that will piece up any self respecting dance floor; Mika Vainio, Ilpo Väisänen & Sami Salo at the controls - an ESSENTIAL 12" from Sähkö Recordings, TIP!

Light in the Attic is honored to announce the long-awaited reissue of Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat, the revolutionary 1982 album from composer and musician Charanjit Singh. Pairing Indian classical ragas with then-state-of-the-art Roland synthesizers and drum machines, Singh created an electronic masterpiece that was far ahead of its time.

Recording live at Mumbai’s HMV studios, Singh married the past to the future—blending the ancient Indian tradition of ragas (a melodic framework, similar to a scale, from which musicians can improvise or compose) with pulsating, electronic dance beats. Released without fanfare, it faded into obscurity and Singh retired from recording to focus on private concerts, but that’s where the story begins…

Released in cooperation with Singh’s estate, Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat arrives on June 26th. The 10-track album was remastered by Johanz Westerman at Ballyhoo Studio Mastering and stretched across 2-LPs for the highest quality listening experience. The vinyl was pressed at Optimal Media and housed in a gatefold jacket that replicates the original artwork.

An accompanying 16-page LP booklet features previously-unreleased photos and two new essays: the first from Arshia Fatima Haq and Jeremy Loudenback of Discostan—a multimedia collective and record label focusing on music from South West Asia and North Africa—while the other comes from filmmaker and writer Rana Ghose of event and film production entity REProduce Artists, who managed Singh in his final years and documented his triumphant return to the stage. Additionally, fans can find a limited-edition pressing of Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat on ‘Pearlescent Transcendent Future’ Color Wax, while the album will also be reissued on CD with a 32-page booklet containing all of the above.

More on Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat:

Indian multi-instrumentalist and composer Charanjit Singh (1940–2015) never intended to be an electronic dance music pioneer when he recorded 1982’s Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat. Yet three decades later, his inventive use of state-of-the-art synthesizers and drum machines would prompt some to crown him the “Godfather of Acid House.” The real story, however, runs much deeper.

A native of Mumbai, Singh spent much of his career as a Bollywood session musician, collaborating with renowned composers like RD Burman and Shankar–Jaikishan, and appearing on some of the most iconic Hindi film hits of the ‘60s and ‘70s. Outside of the film industry, Singh recorded several of his own albums and toured the world alongside the era’s biggest stars—an opportunity which allowed him to collect new instruments, including synthesizers and other electronic devices. As psychedelia and disco wove their way into Bollywood scores, Singh was at the forefront, integrating a host of electronic textures into his work (his hypnotic Transicord introduction on “Dum Maro Dum” from 1971’s Hare Rama Hare Krishna is among his most recognizable performances).

By the turn of the ‘80s, however, Singh was disenchanted by the creative limitations of session work and embarked on a solo career. Not long after, on tour in Singapore, he discovered three Roland devices that had just hit the market: the TR-808 drum machine (released 1980), the TB-303 bass synthesizer (released 1981), and the Jupiter 8 synthesizer (released 1981). While this trio would fuel early electronic dance music in the coming years, Singh was among the first known artists to pair them on record when he was inspired to create his next album, Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat.

Using only the three devices and recording live at Mumbai’s HMV studios, Singh married the past to the future—blending the ancient Indian tradition of ragas (a melodic framework, similar to a scale, from which musicians can improvise or compose) with pulsating, electronic dance beats, while programming the TB-303 to follow classical Hindustani scales. From the hypnotic drones of “Raga Bhairavi” to the uplifting jams of “Raga Bairagi” the album proved perhaps to be a bit too visionary for its time. Released without fanfare, it faded into obscurity and Singh retired from recording to focus on private concerts.

Two decades later, Dutch DJ and record collector Edo Bouman was in New Delhi when he came across an old copy of Ten Ragas. Bouman was astounded by what he heard—electronic music that had all the hallmarks of acid house, recorded five years before Chicago DJs coined the term. Bouman spent the next few years tracking down Singh and, in 2010, reissued the album on his label, Bombay Connection.

Soon, Ten Ragas became a viral sensation, sparking disbelief and debates about the origins of acid house. But, as Haq and Loudenback explain, those in the conversation “Had little frame of reference for [Singh’s] music outside of the parameters of western club music.” Viewed through the lens of the Hindi film industry, they argue, the album’s through-line comes into focus. In the ‘60s, when Western artists were looking to India for inspiration, Bollywood was “A laboratory for discovering sounds, and for harnessing every new technology that could be found or repurposed…. Singh’s album is more fittingly placed within the framework of the expansion of Bollywood’s experiments in disco, rather than that of acid house.”

“Perhaps this is yet another example of how a public engages with those who are ahead of their time,” adds Rana Ghose. “This record is a direct consequence of a centuries-old classical music form, rendered through the lens of a visionary who used the vanguard of technology at the time to recast it, resulting in an artefact that, almost 40 years later, is finding entirely new audiences in an era marked by a changing and uncertain global landscape of soft-power assertion. Considering this reassessment is as exciting as it is fascinating. Much like this record.”

While Ten Ragas sparked plenty of conversations within the electronic music community, it also gave a bemused Singh a surge of newfound fame during the final years of his life, allowing him to play with his live collaborator Johanz Westerman (Thee J Johanz) to thousands of fans at packed club shows and festivals in Europe, the U.S., and India. Among those fans are Australian duo Glass Beams (who covered “Raga Bhairav”), German electronic duo Modeselektor, and Thom Yorke, who ranked “Raga Lalit” as one of his “6 Tracks You Need to Hear” via the BBC.

Most importantly, however, Ten Ragas resonated deeply with South Asian artists, who saw electronic music from India being recognized with new reverence. In the words of Vish Matre (of the UK DJ duo Dar Disku), “This record will be remembered for, not being the predecessor to another genre, but being a precursor to a lot of new music from the diaspora that relied on it as inspiration.”

Light in the Attic is honored to announce the long-awaited reissue of Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat, the revolutionary 1982 album from composer and musician Charanjit Singh. Pairing Indian classical ragas with then-state-of-the-art Roland synthesizers and drum machines, Singh created an electronic masterpiece that was far ahead of its time.

Recording live at Mumbai’s HMV studios, Singh married the past to the future—blending the ancient Indian tradition of ragas (a melodic framework, similar to a scale, from which musicians can improvise or compose) with pulsating, electronic dance beats. Released without fanfare, it faded into obscurity and Singh retired from recording to focus on private concerts, but that’s where the story begins…

Released in cooperation with Singh’s estate, Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat arrives on June 26th. The 10-track album was remastered by Johanz Westerman at Ballyhoo Studio Mastering and stretched across 2-LPs for the highest quality listening experience. The vinyl was pressed at Optimal Media and housed in a gatefold jacket that replicates the original artwork.

An accompanying 16-page LP booklet features previously-unreleased photos and two new essays: the first from Arshia Fatima Haq and Jeremy Loudenback of Discostan—a multimedia collective and record label focusing on music from South West Asia and North Africa—while the other comes from filmmaker and writer Rana Ghose of event and film production entity REProduce Artists, who managed Singh in his final years and documented his triumphant return to the stage. Additionally, fans can find a limited-edition pressing of Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat on ‘Pearlescent Transcendent Future’ Color Wax, while the album will also be reissued on CD with a 32-page booklet containing all of the above.

More on Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat:

Indian multi-instrumentalist and composer Charanjit Singh (1940–2015) never intended to be an electronic dance music pioneer when he recorded 1982’s Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat. Yet three decades later, his inventive use of state-of-the-art synthesizers and drum machines would prompt some to crown him the “Godfather of Acid House.” The real story, however, runs much deeper.

A native of Mumbai, Singh spent much of his career as a Bollywood session musician, collaborating with renowned composers like RD Burman and Shankar–Jaikishan, and appearing on some of the most iconic Hindi film hits of the ‘60s and ‘70s. Outside of the film industry, Singh recorded several of his own albums and toured the world alongside the era’s biggest stars—an opportunity which allowed him to collect new instruments, including synthesizers and other electronic devices. As psychedelia and disco wove their way into Bollywood scores, Singh was at the forefront, integrating a host of electronic textures into his work (his hypnotic Transicord introduction on “Dum Maro Dum” from 1971’s Hare Rama Hare Krishna is among his most recognizable performances).

By the turn of the ‘80s, however, Singh was disenchanted by the creative limitations of session work and embarked on a solo career. Not long after, on tour in Singapore, he discovered three Roland devices that had just hit the market: the TR-808 drum machine (released 1980), the TB-303 bass synthesizer (released 1981), and the Jupiter 8 synthesizer (released 1981). While this trio would fuel early electronic dance music in the coming years, Singh was among the first known artists to pair them on record when he was inspired to create his next album, Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat.

Using only the three devices and recording live at Mumbai’s HMV studios, Singh married the past to the future—blending the ancient Indian tradition of ragas (a melodic framework, similar to a scale, from which musicians can improvise or compose) with pulsating, electronic dance beats, while programming the TB-303 to follow classical Hindustani scales. From the hypnotic drones of “Raga Bhairavi” to the uplifting jams of “Raga Bairagi” the album proved perhaps to be a bit too visionary for its time. Released without fanfare, it faded into obscurity and Singh retired from recording to focus on private concerts.

Two decades later, Dutch DJ and record collector Edo Bouman was in New Delhi when he came across an old copy of Ten Ragas. Bouman was astounded by what he heard—electronic music that had all the hallmarks of acid house, recorded five years before Chicago DJs coined the term. Bouman spent the next few years tracking down Singh and, in 2010, reissued the album on his label, Bombay Connection.

Soon, Ten Ragas became a viral sensation, sparking disbelief and debates about the origins of acid house. But, as Haq and Loudenback explain, those in the conversation “Had little frame of reference for [Singh’s] music outside of the parameters of western club music.” Viewed through the lens of the Hindi film industry, they argue, the album’s through-line comes into focus. In the ‘60s, when Western artists were looking to India for inspiration, Bollywood was “A laboratory for discovering sounds, and for harnessing every new technology that could be found or repurposed…. Singh’s album is more fittingly placed within the framework of the expansion of Bollywood’s experiments in disco, rather than that of acid house.”

“Perhaps this is yet another example of how a public engages with those who are ahead of their time,” adds Rana Ghose. “This record is a direct consequence of a centuries-old classical music form, rendered through the lens of a visionary who used the vanguard of technology at the time to recast it, resulting in an artefact that, almost 40 years later, is finding entirely new audiences in an era marked by a changing and uncertain global landscape of soft-power assertion. Considering this reassessment is as exciting as it is fascinating. Much like this record.”

While Ten Ragas sparked plenty of conversations within the electronic music community, it also gave a bemused Singh a surge of newfound fame during the final years of his life, allowing him to play with his live collaborator Johanz Westerman (Thee J Johanz) to thousands of fans at packed club shows and festivals in Europe, the U.S., and India. Among those fans are Australian duo Glass Beams (who covered “Raga Bhairav”), German electronic duo Modeselektor, and Thom Yorke, who ranked “Raga Lalit” as one of his “6 Tracks You Need to Hear” via the BBC.

Most importantly, however, Ten Ragas resonated deeply with South Asian artists, who saw electronic music from India being recognized with new reverence. In the words of Vish Matre (of the UK DJ duo Dar Disku), “This record will be remembered for, not being the predecessor to another genre, but being a precursor to a lot of new music from the diaspora that relied on it as inspiration.”