World in Stereo examines classic and modern world music while striving for a greater appreciation of other cultures.
Dengue Fever: Cannibal Courtship (Fantasy Records, 4/19/2011)
Dengue Fever: “Uku”
[audio:https://alarm-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/03-Uku.mp3|titles=Dengue Fever: “Uku”]Righteously capturing the free spirit of Cambodia’s 1960s surf-rock and psychedelic-pop scene is Dengue Fever‘s fourth LP, Cannibal Courtship. For almost a decade, the Los Angeles-based ensemble, led by Cambodian songstress Chhom Nimol, has shone a light on the undeniable wealth of grooves that Khmer music has to offer, intricately reworking its musical foundations in an approach that is vintage in style with an ear towards global sounds.
Cannibal Courtship shows the band expanding its sound into new territories, playing a more fuzzed-out, rock-and-roll style while keeping true to the dreamy, reverberated guitar licks and driving bass riffs that make its music so hypnotic. Guitarist Zac Holtzman takes a prominent vocal presence, and Nimol’s English has become increasingly better, resulting in a record that is sung half in Khmer and half in English. The two linguistic styles are tied together with groovy dual vocal parts from the singers.
Whereas the larger Southeast Asian scene — including Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam — saw an incredible boom of Western-influenced, psychedelic rock and roll as early as the ’60s, Cambodia had its golden era of musical mutation before the horrifying Pol Pot regime took over in 1975. During his reign, Western-influenced musicians were killed, and their music was banned and destroyed.