Acid House Pioneer Charanjit Singh Has Died

Photo via Charanjit Singh’s Facebook

Charanjit Singh, the keyboardist and guitarist credited with pioneering acid house music, has died in his sleep, the Wire reports. He was 75.

A former session musician in Bollywood, Singh spent the early 1980s experimenting with Indian raga on the Roland TB 303, TR 808, and Jupiter 8. His album Synthesizing: 10 Ragas to a Disco Beat, recorded in Mumbai in 1982, was among the first to use the 303, some years before it became synonymous with acid house. A commercial failure, the record regained attention as an acid house prototype in the early 2000s thanks to record collector Edo Bouman, who reissued the LP in 2010 on his label Bombay Connection. Speaking to the Guardian at the time, Bouman said: “[Singh] made close to 10 albums, but they all were cover albums. He told me, ‘Frankly, this was the best thing I did. Other albums are all film songs I just played. But this was my own composition. Do something all of your own, and you can make something truly different.’”

At the time of his death, Singh had been planning a live show in London and an album of Indian folk music.

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