Dengue Fever: Cambodian Pop

The other morning I was lucky enough to catch Terry Gross interviewing Zac and Ethan Holzman from Dengue Fever on her nationally syndicated interview show, Fresh Air. For those unfamiliar, the band is reviving Cambodian Pop, a style of music that became all but extinct during the time of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge.
Originally created during the Vietnam conflict, Cambodian Pop was the result of locals listening to American Armed Forces radio, grooving on the psychedelic San Francisco / post-British Invasion sound and mixing it with their native language and instruments. Then shortly after, Pol Pot and his cronies took power and murdered most of Cambodia’s intellectuals and artists, rendering the fledgling musical style all but destroyed. Nearly 30 years later, in comes Dengue Fever, a group of Americans plus a Cambodian singer, who proceed to re-record classic Cambodian Pop songs, as well as their own originals in the style. And it’s super ill.

I interviewed Dengue Fever’s bassist Senon Williams and singer Chhom Nimo (the latter at the time spoke very limited engrish) as the 2nd Annual Ioda SXSW Party in 2006. It’s great to see the band picking up steam and turning a new generation onto rad psychedelic rock. Their new album, Venus On Earth, is available now.

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