Geeta Dayal
A dazzling compilation of lesser-known songs from UK bhangra scenes, Bollywood music directors, and DJs showcases an impressive fusion of styles and inspirations.
Naya Beat Volume 2: South Asian Dance and Electronic Music
1988–1994, various artists, Naya Beat Records
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As an Indian-American growing up in New Jersey in the 1980s and early 1990s, I didn’t have a liking for the South Asian pop and dance music that was then in vogue. The intensely saturated colors, over-the-top arrangements, and syrupy soprano vocals of mainstream Bollywood films felt like too much. The heavy beats of bhangra, a mainstay at Punjabi diaspora parties in the area, didn’t move me either. In high school, I favored dark, brittle goth songs by the Cure, Bauhaus, and Joy Division—which felt the most alien and orthogonal to the music of my own culture.
In my twenties, I moved to New York City. I was exposed to a crash-collision of sounds from different cultures and realized there was more to South Asian pop music than I had previously thought. I became a crate-digger, obsessed with minimal disco and funk from semi-obscure Bollywood movies of the 1970s and early 1980s. I collected rare vinyl, hunted down crumbling vintage cinema posters on trips to India, and attempted to decode the strange history of these lesser-known films. I didn’t grow up directly with these records, so they seemed potent with mystery. I gradually developed a liking for bhangra, too, and appreciated its crossover appeal into American hip-hop and electronic music.
I still never fully came around to the sounds of my youth, though—perhaps because they gave me flashbacks to the doldrums of my upbringing in suburban New Jersey. Perhaps it was also because the Bollywood movies of the 1990s were glossier and slicker, less captivating and whimsical than the old films of a bygone time. The composer A. R. Rahman’s debut in 1992 marked the start of a new era in Bollywood music, and his wildly popular hit songs helped rejuvenate the industry. The quirky charms and swirling orchestral arrangements from earlier decades began to give way to a more modern sound, powered by swift advances in technology. The vocals were similar, but digital samplers, synthesizers, drum machines, and recording techniques brought a harder edge that was not as appealing to me.
Turbotito and Ragz. Courtesy Raghav Mani.
The new compilation Naya Beat Volume 2: South Asian Dance and Electronic Music 1988–1994 is a revelation—a sprawling collection of under recognized tunes by an assortment of bhangra producers, Bollywood music directors, musicians, and DJs from a period that was dominated by the mainstream. Naya Beat Records founders Filip Nikolic (Turbotito) and Raghav Mani (Ragz), based in Los Angeles, spent several years working to bring these songs back to life. Many came from the UK bhangra scenes in London, Birmingham, and other cities. Fusion was the norm, with a lot of cross talk between South Asian musical styles and genres as varied as acid house and reggae.
Mantra. Courtesy Jatinder Sodhi. © Jatinder Sodhi.
The double album begins with the intriguing 1989 downtempo track “My Shooting Star,” by West India Company—an unlikely collaboration between the legendary Bollywood playback singer Asha Bhosle and musician-composers Pandit Dinesh and Peter Culsha, along with Stephen Luscombe of the English synthpop group Blancmange. It opens slowly, with bird sounds, flutes, and sitar. Synths and tabla take over, and Bhosle’s voice floats ethereally over an array of skittering beats and dreamy keyboard flourishes.
Bappi Lahiri. Courtesy Chitrani Lahiri. © Chitrani Lahiri.
The late legendary Bollywood composer Bappi Lahiri was instrumental in incorporating disco and electronic pop into Bollywood soundtracks from the 1970s onward, and he kept going strong for decades until his passing in 2022. His 1990 song here, “Rama Rama,” which was recorded at Abbey Road Studios, has the mellow feel of Balearic house music.
The album takes an abrupt turn with a hyperenergetic remix of Sharlene Boodram’s 1994 “Chamkay & Chutney.” Known as Trinidad and Tobago’s Princess of Soca, Boodram grew up immersed in dub, calypso, chutney, and reggae. This hard-driving version, produced by Turbotito and Ragz with heavier beats and more forward propulsion, sounds fresh and current.
Kuljit Bhamra. Courtesy Keda Records. Photo: Steve Double. © Keda Records.
Other surprises abound. Kuljit Bhamra, a pioneer of modern UK bhangra music, delivers a bracing head-turner with 1992’s “Dholdrums,” which begins with rapid-fire percussion solos before morphing into a buoyant, upbeat house track. The otherworldly 1991 “Mantra,” by Mantra, the London-based duo of Harry Rihal and Jati Sodhi, offers the unlikely merger of acid house with a recitation of the ancient Gayatri mantra over a hypnotic pulse. Deepak Khazanchi’s “Bass Fire” is a high-energy dance tune, coupled with the legendary Asha Puthli’s mesmerizing vocals. And the synthetic pop of Johnny Zee’s “Billo To Meri Aan,” which ostensibly mixes Michael Jackson inspirations with bhangra, also recalls prime Scritti Politti. Other highlights include the Jets Orkhestra’s “X-290,” an experimental 1990 release with jazzy keyboards and a strangely ominous vibe inspired by the 1983 film War Games, and Lady M’s spellbinding house track “Kali Raat.”
Lady M. Courtesy Garage Groove Recording Corporation LTD. Photo: Aniket Chhipa. © Garage Groove Recording Corporation LTD.
The most transcendent song on the compilation is by Sangeeta Kaur (known as Sangeeta), whose music broke barriers in the male-dominated bhangra industry. Her albums in the early 1990s—with romantic titles like A Breath of Fresh Bhangra Air, Flowers in the Wind, and Arrows of Love—marked a radical departure from the machismo of the genre. Her body of work deserves much wider recognition. “Calling,” featured in a gorgeous, airy new remix also by Turbotito and Ragz, showcases her angelic, haunting voice. Her untimely passing earlier this year was a great loss, but her music continues to inspire.
Sangeeta. Courtesy Keda Records. Photo: Steve Double. © Keda Records.
Listening now to this treasure trove of music, I wonder how my life would have been remapped if I had gotten to hear it in the 1990s. Naya Beat Volume 2 is more than just a collection of old songs; it’s an excavation of a lost chapter in the history of a dynamic global diaspora. This kaleidoscopic array of sounds offers a look back at what was, and what could have been. There is still more to discover, as these stories continue to unfold.
Geeta Dayal is an arts critic and journalist specializing in twentieth-century music, culture, and technology. She has written extensively for frieze and many other publications, including the Guardian, Wired, the Wire, Bookforum, Slate, the Boston Globe, and Rolling Stone. She is the author of Another Green World (Bloomsbury, 2009), a book on Brian Eno, and is currently at work on a new book on music.