ALBUM REVIEW – BHAJAN BHOY: ELECTRISOL

The prize for most productive recording artists is hotting up. There are long standing contenders such as Robert Pollard of Guided By Voices and John Dwyer with his various OSEES iterations. They rarely seem to pause for breath with each season heralding a new album, all while maintaining a recognisable style and good level of […]
When reviewing new music from Ajay Saggar, it has become obligatory to remark upon the impossibility of guessing what he will do next. Since last he featured on this website, he has released ‘Summer In St Mary’s’ under the guise of Bhajan Bhoy, a double album of organ music recorded in a 15th Century church. […]

ALBUM REVIEW – BHAJAN BHOY: MEDITATIONS

ALBUM REVIEW – BHAJAN BHOY: BHOY ON THE WIRE

On The Wire is a long-running radio show presented by Steve Barker which started broadcasting in 1984. Unlike anything else on BBC Radio Lancashire (or any other station) in its Sunday afternoon heyday, it introduced its listeners to a huge array of sounds. Among the delights being offered up in the 1980s were On-U-Sounds, cutting […]
The latest manifestation of Ajay Saggar’s prodigious workload sees the release of two sessions recorded for American radio stations, WFMU and WGXC, for his solo project, Bhajan Bhoy. These were recorded in the summer of 2023, prior to his US tour in the Autumn. Unlike most radio sessions, rather than promote the current album, he […]

ALBUM REVIEW – BHAJAN BHOY: PEACE FREQUENCIES / HEALING FREQUENCIES

ALBUM REVIEW – DANDELION ADVENTURE: JOHN PEEL SESSION

For those of us who live in small towns with often inconsequential music scenes, the arrival of a band whose ambitions and talents stretched beyond playing the local pub rock venues was always a cause for celebration. The Dandelion Adventure emerged from Preston and its surrounds, initially in 1986 as a delightfully sprawling improvised mess, […]
Assiduous Silent Radio readers will have noticed numerous reviews referencing Ajay Saggar over the past couple of years. In addition to releases under his solo guise, Bhajan Bhoy, there have been collaborations as Chela and Volksempfänger. Prior to his April tour of Scotland and northern England, we asked him about his life in music. In […]

INTERVIEW: AJAY SAGGAR (BHAJAN BHOY)

ALBUM REVIEW – VOLKSEMPFANGER: ATTACK OF SOUND

I am in awe of Ajay Saggar. In addition to his day (and night) job as production manager at the Paradiso, Amsterdam’s main venue, he has found time to bombard the listening public with an array of great albums during 2023. He started off greeting Spring with a double album from his solo project, Bhajan […]
Side projects offer the ideal space for artists to reveal previously unseen aspects of their musical fascinations. The band Bo Ningen is associated with brutal slabs of heavy psychedelic guitar assaults but the first release from Chela allows their guitar mangler and synth wrangler Kohhei Matsuda to reveal a more experimental side. On ’Diagonal Drift’ […]

ALBUM REVIEW – CHELA: DIAGONAL DRIFT