When Ethan Holtzman was backpacking through Southeast Asia, he came across cassettes of Cambodian pop music from the '60s and '70s—a strange hybrid of traditional Cambodian singing in the Khmer language and '60s surf rock. American and British pop, broadcast for the American troops during the Vietnam War, seeped over the border into Cambodia, inspiring Cambodian musicians to adopt the style. During the Khmer Rouge regime of Pol Pot in the late '70s, most of these Western-inspired artists were executed by the state. Holtzman collected their recordings and brought them back to his brother Zac, who had coincidentally been listening to recordings by Cambodian singers of the same era, like Sinn Sisamouth and Ros Serey Sothea. The brothers were inspired by the music, and decided to revive this dead form of Cambodian pop with a Khmer singer at the helm.
In Long Beach's Little Phnom Penh area, a neighborhood densely populated by Cambodians, the brothers found singer Chhom Nimol, and the band Dengue Fever was formed. The band's most recent venture, Venus on Earth, comprises originals sung in both English and Khmer. The familiar, straight 4/4 rhythm of surf- and garage-rock, analog synthesizers and brass is reminiscent of James Bond themes, and combines with the winding, breaking soprano style (called "ghost voice") of Khmer singing to create a sense of aural tourism. Dengue Fever's music gives the sense that the world is not as large as it may once have seemed. Chicha Libre opens.
July 8, $12-14, The Iron Horse Music Hall, 20 Center St., Northampton, (413) 584-0610, www.iheg.com.
