Charanjit Singh

Charanjit Singh was an Indian musician. He was born in 1940 in Mumbai. He used to perform as a session musician, often as a synthesizer player or a guitarist. His work is most notable in Bollywood soundtrack orchestras from the 1960s to the 1980s. He was fond of working with filmi composers like R. D. Burman and Laxmikant Pyarelal.

Charanjit recorded and released several albums including popular film songs and led a wedding band. These songs were a sort of instrumental elevator music. Sublime Frequencies, a Seattle based record label, has re-released some of these songs like his steel guitar renditions of Chura Liyaa Hai Tumne and Manje Re. Synthesizer based renditions of the soundtrack Silsila was produced by him in 1981 as part of his record Charanjit Singh: Plays Hit Tunes on Synthesizer of Silsila.

He is known for rediscovering acid house music from the mid to late 1980s and since then several commentators in the music press have termed him as an originator of the music kind acid house. 

His release Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat, using three electronic musical instruments, was a failure at its time but when later re-discovered in 2002 and re-issued in the 2010s, gained a lot of attention as acid house music. His records were considered far ahead of its time. It was released back in 1982 under the label Gramophone Company of India, which is now called Sa Re Ga Ma.

Since 2012, Charanjit was seen performing live, the material from his album Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat.

He died in his sleep due to a cardiac arrest in 2015 in Bandra, Mumbai.