Mr Scruff and Turbotito & Ragz on Naya Beat’s ‘Bhangra House XTC’ EP: “like a raw, early Chicago house tune”

Where Bhangra meets house

Mr Scruff (pictured) and Turbotito & Ragz have been discussing their contributions to the ‘Bhangra House XTC’ EP, a four track 12″ on Naya Beat.

The EP takes the crossection of late 80s to early 90s Bhangra music with acid house and updates it for a 2024 audience.

Scruff delivers two remixes – one vocal and one instrumenta – of ‘Ishkaan De Mamle’ by UK Bhangra pioneer Manjeet Kondal, who died on November 2023.

“I really appreciated the opportunity to work on this classic,” he said.

“Listening to the stems, it sounded in parts like a raw, early Chicago house tune, so it made sense to approach it from that angle, and strip things down and tease out that side of the track a bit. I have vivid memories of how raw, exciting and new house music was in the mid 1980s, so this was a throwback to those years, and a tribute to the Bhangra pioneers who were experimenting with fusing their sound with the dance music of the time.”

Meanwhile, the other two tracks see label owners and remixers Turbotito & Ragz (pictured, above) inhabiting Kondal’s ‘Pyaar’ “straight from the stems”.

“We’re massive fans of that late 80s period of UK Bhangra and how it incorporated so much from other areas of UK diaspora and underground music,” they said. “When Andy sent us his blistering acid house remixes of Ishkaan De Mamle we thought it would be fun to complement them with a tribute to the dub side of Bhangra, inspired by the likes of Bally Sagoo, The Sahotas, Rama, etc. Deepak who produced the original album Holle Holle sent us vocal stems from a few other tracks on the album, including a lovely female chorus singing “pyaar” (love in Punjabi). We built our track around that.”

To buy your copy of ‘Bhangra House XTC’ on 12″ vinyl, click here