Dengue Fever

Kim Theary, a two-year-old child suffering from dengue fever, is held by her mother under a tree outside a hospital in Cambodia's Kandal province May 31, 2008.REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea (CAMBODIA)

Robin Denselow
Monday June 2, 2008
The Guardian

Dengue Fever will be hard to avoid this summer. Already booked for a fistful of major festivals, including Glastonbury and Womad, this "Cambodian pop band" are the most unlikely multicultural fusion exponents. They are, in fact, mostly American and were formed by Los Angeles guitarist Zac Holtzman, who has a beard worthy of ZZ Top and became fascinated by the local pop styles while backpacking in Cambodia more than a decade ago. He then began to explore the extraordinary history of Cambodia's pop scene, which flourished in the 1960s, when local musicians mixed western styles with folk melodies. It was brutally crushed in the 70s by the Khmer Rouge.

Holtzman set out to revive 60s Cambodian pop and create a new American-Cambodian style. In Dengue Fever, he is joined by his brother Ethan on keyboards, along with bass, drums, saxophone, and one Cambodian - Chhom Nimol - once a star back home, but discovered by Holtzman while singing for the California Cambodian community in Long Beach.

Making their first British appearance at the Borderline, they proved to be a highly entertaining pop band who were surely capable of even more. Most of the songs were in Khmer and sounded as if they would be too jolly and straightforward if not dressed up by the classy arrangements, with eastern influences mixed with echoes of surf guitar, or transformed by the sheer enthusiasm of the petite and charismatic Nimol, who easily matched the musicians with the power of her singing.

It was enormous fun, if at times lacking in variety. The Khmer pop was matched with the occasional duet in English, such as the witty Tiger Phone Card (about a long-distance call between Phnom Penh and New York), and the final Mr Orange was an inspired guitar-and- brass rock workout. A band to watch.