Name: Dengue Fever Presents: Electric Cambodia
Brand: Allegro Corporation ***
SKU: 21630043
Price: 19.49 USD
Availability: InStock

Dengue Fever Presents

Rating

Album: Dengue Fever Presents: Electric Cambodia
#	Song Title		Time
1)	Give Me One Kiss	More Info...
2)	Don't Speak	More Info...
3)	Jombang Jet	More Info...
4)	Flowers in the Pond	More Info...
5)	Shave Your Beard	More Info...
6)	I Will Marry You	More Info...
7)	I Want to Shout	More Info...
8)	Jasmine Girl	More Info...
9)	I Want to Be Your Lover	More Info...
10)	Hope to Meet You	More Info...
11)	Sneaha	More Info...
12)	I Will Starve Myself to Death	More Info...
13)	Unknown Title	More Info...
14)	Cold Sky	More Info...

Album: Dengue Fever Presents: Electric Cambodia
#	Song Title		Time
1)	Give Me One Kiss	More Info...
2)	Don't Speak	More Info...
3)	Jombang Jet	More Info...
4)	Flowers in the Pond	More Info...
5)	Shave Your Beard	More Info...
6)	I Will Marry You	More Info...
7)	I Want to Shout	More Info...
8)	Jasmine Girl	More Info...
9)	I Want to Be Your Lover	More Info...
10)	Hope to Meet You	More Info...
11)	Sneaha	More Info...
12)	I Will Starve Myself to Death	More Info...
13)	Unknown Title	More Info...
14)	Cold Sky	More Info...

Performer Notes

Liner Note Author: John Pirozzi.
The band Dengue Fever have managed to build a career out of their obsession with Cambodian pop music of the 1960s and '70s, and with this compilation, they've generously allowed fans to sample their treasure trove of rare recordings, rescued from battered cassettes brought back from visits to Southeast Asia. While the Sublime Frequencies label has been releasing fascinating compilations of Asian pop from this time period, the music on Electric Cambodia: 14 Rare Gems from Cambodia's Past more closely walks a middle ground between the distinct melodic and vocal style of traditional Cambodian music and the insistent rhythms and electric instrumentation of Western pop and rock; instead of suggesting Asian folk music with some American pop added to the mix, these tunes tend to offer a more equal fusion of the two styles, and the creative and cultural mashups result in some inspired combinations. Highlights include the bright, kinetic sound of Ros Sereysothea's "I Want to Shout" (complete with a killer guitar solo), the assured R&B shuffle of "Shave Your Beard" from the same act, "Give Me One Kiss" by Dara Chom Chan, which recalls an Asian girl group backed by a ska band, and several cuts from Pan Ron, including the polished but driving garage rock of "Don't Speak," some heavily rhythmic psychedelia with "Jombang Jet," an appropriately melodramatic cover of Sonny Bono's "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" dubbed "Snaeha," and an untitled number that features some deadly fuzztone riffs Link Wray would admire. This music is wild and energetic fun, though it's also a document of a short-lived era in Cambodian history that came to an end with the rise of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, whose efforts to rid the nation of modern Western influences led to the death of nearly all the artists represented on this disc. If there's a tragedy lurking behind this music, at least Electric Cambodia allows a wider audience to hear this remarkable music, and you don't have to be a collector of cross-cultural oddities to enjoy it. ~ Mark Deming

Professional Reviews

Down Beat (p.85) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "Fourteen singles offer listeners access to the euphoric sounds that Khmer teenagers danced to in the halcyon time before the despot Pol Pot turned the country into killing fields in 1975."