Charanjit Singh, the Bollywood session guitarist and synthesist who recorded the first acid-house album in 1982, passed away in his Mumbai, India home on July 3. He was 74.

Singh gained the attention of many in the West in 2010 when the Bombay Connection label reissued his classic Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat album, which predated the acid house coming out of Chicago by a few years. It's an amazing artifact that still sounds sui generis today.

Fusing Indian ragas to disco rhythms—and then embellishing songs with inventive filigrees via the Roland synthesizers TB-303, TB-808, and Jupiter-8—Singh created hypnotic, kinetic tracks that are so singular, they're difficult to mix into a DJ set. Nevertheless, they sound fantastic in any context, even on a computer or cell phone with subpar headphones.

It's amazing to think Singh cut all 10 tracks within a two-day time span, in single takes, to capitalize on the disco craze that was sweeping India in the early '80s.