Lucid Dreaming: Bhajan Bhoy And His Midnight Muse

Quiz question: What do Let It Be, Purple Haze and The Rolling Stones’ Satisfaction all have in common?

Answer: They were all composed in a dream.

McCartney and Lennon both notoriously used the dream state as a source of inspiration. As did Todd Rundgren, Elvis Costello and Michael Stipe. In that space between worlds, where the lines of reality and fantasy begin to blur, lies a creative elixir.

It’s a zone Amsterdam-based musician, Ajay Saggar, aka Bhajan Bhoy, also likes to inhabit; one where he, too, frequently tastes inexplicable wonderment.

“If I’m not completely knocked out, I start thinking of music in my head and I get the wildest things. Sometimes I’m so tripping out on it that it takes me into this different world. I’ve had instances where I’ve woken up in the morning – very, very early, without any of my family knowing – got up, got my clothes on and cycled to the studio to record immediately.”

When it comes to capturing those ideas, there is little such room for day-dreaming. Ajay has a strong work ethic. “I come in, turn everything on, make a huge pot of tea and then just sit and work for seven, eight, nine, ten hours. Every day.”

Currently recording under the name, Bhajan Bhoy, it is Ajay’s first solo venture, having been in bands for a number of years. Raised on a diet of John Peel and The Stranglers, Ajay played bass in cult, indie-punk Lancashire band, Dandelion Adventure, from the mid-’80s before moving to Amsterdam in the early ’90s. Since then he’s been in the bands Donkey, The Bent Moustache and King Champion Sounds, to name just a few, carried out sound engineering duties for shoe-gazing head-crunchers MBV, Dinosaur Jr and Mogwai, and now works as production manager at the world-famous venue, Paradiso.

Ajay: “I got sick of being in Britain back then, that post-Thatcher misery. It was horrible everywhere. I needed a change. So I went there with a completely clean slate. I had no particular plans. I took any savings I had, my possessions, my bass guitars, my record collection, a few clothes and started from scratch.”

His nomadic exploits, coupled with an intrinsic open-ness to new experiences – “I’m always incredibly thirsty for new sounds and new ways of expressing myself within music” – have led him to his current incarnation. Bhajan Bhoy is a meditative fusion of eastern modular vibrations and layered guitar textures that bob and weave, rise and fall, snake and crawl into your consciousness.

“I started recording this stuff in 2019. I needed an outlet. I had too many ideas going on and was playing in group formations for so many years. One group had seven people in it. And some of the song ideas were very personal. So I started recording them on my own and when I finished it, I was really happy with it, and thought ‘I’m gonna put this out myself’.

“Then Covid broke out, the world went into lockdown and that particular album just really spoke to a lot of people around the world at that moment. It got played everywhere. It got reviewed everywhere. I hardly did anything. I just sent out Dropbox links and it spread like wildfire. All the stars seem to align. I think it’s a great album.”

One of the stars finding alignment was lockdown itself, which, Ajay admits, created a different social dynamic, one in which his new sounds flourished. As Ajay puts it: “People rediscovered the art of listening.”

The 2020 album Bless Bless was followed by Shanti Shanti Shanti in 2022 and To Love Is To Love a year later. Continuous threads of layered ambient resonance run through each, as do Ajay’s spiritual roots. “Bhajan is a Hindustani word for a religious song. We sing bhajans. And with ‘Bhoy’, I deliberately put the ‘H’ in to make it feel a bit Celtic.”

It’s a mash-up that’s representative of his geographical and cultural past.

In the live setting, the vast array of varied components he uses to create one unified sound are all the more evident. Instrumentation and pedals aside, Ajay will intersperse his dronal frequencies with recordings from cassette tapes – snippets of dialogue, often raw, earthy and grounding in substance.

It seems, in part, a reflection Ajay’s British heritage. Despite the fact he’s now been living abroad for more than 30 years, his time spent in northern England continues to bear influence.

“Britain is still Britain and I love coming back because it’s still a huge part of me. But things have changed a lot. When I go back to Manchester now the city centre is trying to become Manhattan. I’d like to say to the city elders, don’t forget your history. You’re just drowning it out with all this glass.”

Musically, you couldn’t easily anchor Bhajan Bhoy to a place or indeed a decade or genre. Ajay manifests soundscapes that aim for a realm beyond time and space. When it works, you’re transported to something other-worldly. Something much like the dream state.

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