- Marc Walker
- I’m not too sure what’s supposed to be happening in this Dengue Fever photo. It doesn’t look the guys even told front woman Chhom Nimol about their little tableau.
Los Angeles-based six-piece Dengue Fever devote themselves to Cambodian pop of the 60s and 70s, which combines traditional singing with a playful riot of Western flavors, most prominently bluesy garage rock, organ-soaked psychedelia, and reverb-crazed surf music. It was nearly driven to extinction by the genocides of the Khmer Rouge, but it’s hardly been forgotten by Cambodians, for many of whom it represents a sunnier, more innocent time in the country’s history.
Of course, not much in Dengue Fever’s music can compete with Nimol’s sinuous, sensual, knife-edged voice—her beautiful high notes reliably give me chills. And on this song, she does something I’ve never heard from her before: I wouldn’t go so far as to call it “rapping,” but it’s close. As a bonus, it allows those of us who don’t speak Khmer to better make out its occasional bitten-off syllables and unfamiliar diphthongs.
