Yesterday, we ran the first half of the Cambodian rock playlist compiled for us by Julian Poulson of the Cambodian Space Project . Here is the second.
Nutbush City Limits - Ike & Tina Turner
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6b3EOovYHB0
This is Tina at her explosive best: big hair; big dancing; drug-addled Ike skulkin’ away but somehow adding the pioneering Moog Theremin solo; and if it isn’t Marc Bolan playing guitar on this track it sure does sound like him. ‘Nutbush City Limits’ is an amazing track, a semi-autobiographical song written in 1973, shortly before Ike and Tina split.
It most certainly would have had an caught the attention of Cambodian musicians: the autobiographical story-telling lyric is something used in lots of Cambodian music, especially troubadour music like the Chapei Dong Veng (long necked lute) music played by Master Kong Nay. Srey Thy also writes songs, like ‘Have Visa, No Have Rice’ and ‘Not Easy Rock’n’Roll’, in which she talks about her own journey.
Laisse tomber les filles – France Gall / Serge Gainsbourg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SwsTm7cRAV8#!
This song is another of Srey Thy’s non-Khmer favourites. Originally recorded by France Gall, it’s soaked in sexual innuendo though the teenage chanteuse is apparently oblivious to the lyrical cunning of Serge ‘stop messing around with the girls’ Gainsbourg. Aside from GI radio and the British Invasion, French music, from gypsy guitar to Ye Ye pop, was a big influence on the Cambodian musicians.
Cambodia gained independence from French colonialism in 1953, a year after Prince Sihanouk had gone into exile in Thailand, vowing not to return to Cambodia until the country was free of the French. Cambodian elite were mostly educated in France: Pol Pot and most of the Khmer Rouge leaders attended French universities and the country’s military command was also trained in France.
Many Cambodians think the song ‘La Vie En Rose’ is a song by Norodom Sihanouk, as the prince-cum-king cum-prime minister often sang it on TV. Today, there’s a large expat French community in Cambodia and many French musicians living in Phnom Penh and playing in new bands like The Cambodian Space Project. Stay tuned, for a Khmer version of ‘Laisse tomber les filles’.
Heroin – The Velvet Underground & Nico
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qFLw26BjDZs
Did Andy Warhol, The Velvet Underground, Lou, Nico and the song ‘Heroin’ have any influence on Cambodian musicians of the 1960s and ‘70s? Impossible to know but there’s something amazing about the psychedelic feel of Heroin and other Velvet’s tracks like Venus In Furs that has the same kind of shimmering fragile beauty that you can hear in several of the wonderfully psyched-out Cambodian recordings of the ‘60s.
my favourite of these is a song Srey Thy calls Baby Lady Boy, when I first heard this track I thought wow, that’s a Velvets sound at its finest and it’s from Cambodia?! ‘Heroin’ is a VU track that features Reeds quiet, melodic guitar, the hypnotic drum patterns of Mo Tucker, John Cale’s droning viola and Sterling Morrison’s steady rhythm guitar, this kind of instrumentation is heard in Cambodian music and certainly influences our Cambodian Space Project on tracks like Whisky Cambodia, it’s simply a matter of replacing Cale’s electric viola with the Cambodian Tro (one-stringed violin).
I recall going to a wedding here in Cambodia and hearing a traditional Khmer band with their Tro’s mic-ed up through distorted amps then feed into a bigger PA, the sound was a totally wild feed-backing psychedelics somewhere between Hendrix at the Isle of White and Heroin by the VU. Speaking of the drug itself, Cambodia is close to the notorious Golden Triangle and has never been in short supply of opium and heroin; traffickers ranging from The Burmese army through to the CIA using its infamous Air America program are just some of the regions dealers. Jon Swain’s wonderful book ‘River in Time’ describes Phnom Penh between 70-75 as a city of numerous opium dens and junkies. Heroin and other drugs must have had an influence on Cambodian music; many of the songs are about getting drunk. Whether or not The Velvet Underground’s highly influential sound had any influence on local musicians is a tantalizing mystery but there are certainly some beguiling recordings that would sweep any VU lover off their pointy-shoed feet.
Women – Master Kong Nay vs. The Cambodian Space Project
I first arrived in Cambodia on an Asialink artist residency and was keen to spend my time learning about, and perhaps recording, some traditional instruments. I’d discovered a few videos of Kong Nay prior to arrival and, when someone offered to take me to meet this ‘living treasure’ at his home, I jumped at it the chance.
At the time, Kong Nay was living in a small shanty house in an inner city slum area, an area where residents have since been evicted and their homes demolished to make way for commercial development. Blind master Kong Nay was waiting outside his house, with his Chapei Dong Veng in hand and sitting with a pack of Liberation cigarettes and a pint glass of tea.
He’s often referred to as the ‘Ray Charles of Phnom Penh’ and indeed looks uncannily like him. As soon as he launched into his throaty Mekong delta sound, I was totally blown away by what I heard: firstly, the warmth, spirit and bluesy soul in his voice and, secondly, the instrument he was playing, the Chapei Dong Veng. Hearing this music for the first time is the other reason I’ve stayed in Cambodia to live and produce music.
Late last year, we at the Cambodian Space Project were approached by the Office of Human Rights in Cambodia to record three songs in support of human rights. This became a collaboration featuring a sparring match between the Chapei master and the Cambodian Space Project. The track ‘Women’ is a conversation between Master Kong Nay and his student, Srey Thy, about rights for women. It’s available as a free download at Metal Postcard Records.
Shortly after we recorded this project, the head of OHCHR was forced to resign and leave the country; the human rights situation in Cambodia is facing growing criticism from both within the country and from an increasingly alarmed international community.
Srey Thy was concerned about negative repercussions she or her family might face by writing an overtly political song on women’s rights: in Cambodia, female singers are often the targets of violence. Many have been attacked, doused in acid, forced to leave the country or murdered. Fortunately, there has been no negative repercussion and the music culture clash on this song, ‘Women’, sounds great and is something of which we’ll do more.
You can, and should, listen to The Cambodian Space Project's wonderful album 2011 : A Space Odyssey HERE
1 comment:
i like the way tina turner dances; she's so sexy!
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