This is not nostalgia. It is a resurgence, arriving at a time when the sound of Punjabi music is steadily emerging on UK dance floors, shaping festival line-ups, warehouse raves, and club nights. The reissue signals a shift: what once tiptoed through community halls and corner shops now has global visibility and cultural capital. Produced by her son, Kuljit Bhamra, the album’s initial release was tragically overlooked, primarily due to a music industry that struggled to categorise, let alone support, innovative diasporic sounds. Now, through Naya Beat Records, this ‘true lost relic’ is poised to receive its long-overdue recognition, shedding light on a vibrant yet marginalised subculture that has profoundly shaped British music.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Naya Beat (@naya.beat)

The story of ‘Punjabi Disco’ begins in West London, where first-generation South Asian immigrants navigated a complex cultural landscape. Mohinder Kaur Bhamra, a revered classical vocalist, was already a trailblazer, becoming the first woman to sing at Punjabi weddings in the UK. These events, typically conservative and segregated, provided the unlikely backdrop for a quiet revolution. Inspired by the burgeoning disco movement, Kuljit Bhamra envisioned an ‘unsegregated dancefloor’. His mother’s album became the vehicle for this social rebellion, directly challenging gender and social barriers within the community. “We were notorious for enabling the first mixed British Asian dancefloors,” Kuljit recalls, highlighting how the music was not just an artistic experiment, but a socio-political intervention.

Technologically, the album was a marvel. Kuljit utilised a Roland SH-1000 synthesiser and a CR-8000 CompuRhythm drum machine, cutting-edge instruments of 1982, to craft a tapestry of electric drum rhythms, warbling bass, and psychedelic, siren-like Roland synth melodies. This futuristic electronic sound provided a vibrant canvas for his mother’s powerful Punjabi-language folk singing, creating a genre-defying fusion that pre-dated much of what would later be recognised as electronic dance music. 

The path to reissue was arduous. It began with a chance find: a friend alerted archiving DJ Raghav Mani to a rare copy, prompting a hunt for the original master tapes. Over three years, Mani and partners scoured archives, negotiated rights, repaired deteriorating tapes and rebuilt the sound. The remastering includes unreleased tracks, which could not fit on the original press. The reissue also features remixes from contemporary artists such as Peaking Lights, Psychemagik, Mystic Jungle and Baalti.

‘Punjabi Disco’ is no longer a footnote in collector lore. With this reissue, it asserts itself as a foundational document of hybrid sound, one that challenges narratives about where innovation originated and whose voices shaped it. ‘Punjabi Disco’ is finally ready to take its rightful place on the global stage, illuminating a forgotten past and inspiring future generations.

]]> https://www.mxdwn.co.uk/news/from-lost-holy-grail-to-dancefloor-revelation-reissue-of-punjabi-disco-illuminates-forgotten-uk-asian-dance-legacy/feed/ 0 https://www.mxdwn.co.uk/news/david-bowies-favourite-songs-revealed-ahead-of-va-archive-opening/ https://www.mxdwn.co.uk/news/david-bowies-favourite-songs-revealed-ahead-of-va-archive-opening/#comments Thu, 11 Sep 2025 10:53:13 +0000 http://www.mxdwn.co.uk/?p=113024 A handwritten note listing David Bowie’s favourite songs has been unearthed in the archive set to open at the V&A East Storehouse in Hackney Wick in London this month.

The David Bowie Centre for the Study of Performing Arts will open its doors on September 13, showcasing more than 90,000 items from the late artist’s career. The collection – drawn from the David Bowie Estate and acquired with support from the Blavatnik Family Foundation and Warner Music Group – promises to trace Bowie’s creative processes as a musical innovator, cultural icon, and relentless advocate for reinvention.

Alongside stage costumes, handwritten lyrics and personal artefacts, archivists have discovered a note headed “Memo for radio show – list of favourite records”. The document reveals a selection of tracks that inspired and influenced Bowie, ranging from classical works to rock ’n’ roll, avant-garde and punk.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by V&A East (@vam_east)

The list includes Alan Freed and His Rock ’N’ Roll Band’s ‘Right Now Right Now’, Jeff Beck’s ‘Beck’s Bolero’, and Little Richard’s ‘True Fine Mama’. Bowie also singled out The Beatles’ ‘Across The Universe’ – a track he later covered on his 1975 album ‘Young Americans’. Other favourites include Roxy Music’s ‘Mother of Pearl’, The Walker Brothers’ brooding ‘The Electrician’, and ‘Tom Violence’ by Sonic Youth.

The full list reads:

• Ralph Vaughan Williams – ‘Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis’
• Richard Strauss – ‘Four Last Songs’
• Alan Freed and His Rock ’N’ Roll Band – ‘Right Now Right Now’
• Little Richard – ‘True Fine Mama’
• The Hollywood Argyles – ‘Sho Know a Lot About Love’
• Miles Davis – ‘Some Day My Prince Will Come’
• Charles Mingus – ‘Ecclusiastics’
• Jeff Beck – ‘Beck’s Bolero’
• Legendary Stardust Cowboy – ‘I Took a Trip on a Gemini Spaceship’
• The Beatles – ‘Across the Universe’
• Ronnie Spector – ‘Try Some, Buy Some’
• Roxy Music – ‘Mother of Pearl’
• Edgar Froese – ‘Epsilon in Malaysian Pale’
• The Walker Brothers – ‘The Electrician’
• Sonic Youth – ‘Tom Violence’

Archivists also uncovered a handwritten list of Bowie’s “ins” and “outs” from 1995. Among the “ins” were “chaos surfing”, “no tidy endings” and “David Bowie”, while the “outs” included “religion”, “irony”, “your 15 minutes” and, intriguingly, “David Bowie” once again.

The documents were found in a room Bowie kept locked and accessible only to himself and his personal assistant. Left untouched until now, they will join the wider collection when the David Bowie Centre opens to the public later this month.

The 72-year-old percussionist has named his new label ‘Nice Records’, the label is set to issue unreleased recordings and tracks that span throughout his long and respected career. Jones’ indie label will launch with the release of live recordings from his time in Small Faces taken from the drummer’s personal archive collection, entitled ‘Small Faces- Live 1966’, the launch and release will be on 3rd September 2021. The label’s first release features the band’s earliest recorded live performance from 9th January 1966 and includes two sets played at the Twenty Club located in Mouscron, Belgium. Jones is best known as the drummer for three of the 1960s most influential mod and rock bands, Small Faces, The Faces and the ‘My Generation’ rockers The Who.

The mod icon issued the following statement concerning his new business venture and describes the label’s mission to celebrate his musical legacy. “It’s great to launch Nice Records and to be able to take back control of the Small Faces products and recordings. I have assembled a first class team who understand the importance of the Small Faces legacy. I am so pleased there is a record of us performing at this time. We were a great live act then and even though we started to have hits, our live act was never the same again. This gig is really what the Small Faces were all about.”

Rob Caiger, Small Faces archivist and producer of reissues has also spoken on Kennedy’s new label and discusses how Nice Records will be a positive factor within the music industry. “Kenney has set up Nice Records to ensure the artists – and their dependents – get paid for their recordings as opposed to the many companies that have sprung up recently to exploit the ‘use it or lose it’ EU ruling for previously unreleased material over 50 years that is now deemed to be in the public domain. He is following Frank Zappa’s brilliant initiative, taken on by bands such as the Stones, to beat the bootleggers and give control back to the musicians. In this case, we think Kenney is the first artist to exploit the current EU ruling for the benefit of the artists.”

Caiger continues to describe the laws concerning the release of archived music and further confirms not just the importance of the archived and historic recordings but also the significant role in which Kennedy has played to ensure the safety of such recordings. “We want to do this properly. There is still previously unreleased material locked away in archives because record companies can’t – or won’t – release it, as well as material that labels lost or never got from the artist in the first place. In Kenney’s case, he has been diligently looking after session and live tapes he has played on from the Small Faces onwards. As some will know, as well as his work with the Small Faces, Faces and The Who, Kenney played on countless sessions by other artists (particularly during his time recording at Olympic Studios in London). Kenney usually got a copy of the tape and in many cases, he was the source for the only surviving copy of the masters, as he was whenwe put together the Small Faces remaster series.”

Click here to pre-order ‘Small Faces – Live 1966’.

‘And also, the accountancy job is still open on Stourport-on-Severn … [so] why don’t you just come back home and we’ll pretend all this stuff didn’t happen?’ he added. Plant did not find the letter until a few months ago: ‘it made me feel crazy because I thought about what a pitch it was in those days to chuck everything up in the air and just say, ‘Sorry, I’ve got to this,’ and for them to throw the next card down and say, ‘Well, if you do it, you can’t come back here and live the live you wanna live. It’s academia or you’re out.’ So I went. … I only went back, really, when I got engaged. … I went back and introduced my future ex-wife.’

Zeppelin singer confessed that he spent lockdown ‘in Worcestershire, Shropshire, the Welsh borders; just walking, painting, drawing’. By being forced to stay at home, he had plenty of time to put his house in order: ‘All the adventures that I’ve ever had with music and tours, album releases, projects that didn’t actually get finished or whatever it is — I just put them, itemised them all, and put everything into some semblance of order. So I’ve completely changed the set-up.’

However, these items will only see the light of day after Plant’s passing: ‘I’ve told the kids when I kick the bucket, open it to the public free of charge — just to see how many silly things there were down the line from 1966 to now. It’s a journey.’ For the time being, Robert Plant will headline this year’s Black Deer Festival in Kent.