Catch Dengue Fever's Cambodian psych-pop

By V. M. Black
SPECIAL TO THE AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Thursday, March 27, 2008

Cambodian-flavored psychedelic-pop band Dengue Fever will bring their genre-bending dance music — and their charismatic front woman, Chhom Nimol — to Club deVille for an all-out world-music dance party Friday.

Los Angeles' Dengue Fever — vocalist Nimol, vocalist/guitarist Zac Holtzman, Farfisa organist Ethan Holtzman, bassist Senon Williams, saxophonist David Ralicke and drummer Paul Smith — is touring in support of its recent release, "Venus on Earth." Dengue Fever's distinctive influences — traditional Cambodian music, Brazilian psych-pop, American funk, Bollywood soundtracks, African jazz and West Coast surf music — grew out of a record-collecting obsession inspired by Ethan Holtzman's 1997 trip to Cambodia. Holtzman became enamored of the way Cambodian musicians incorporated American pop music from the late 1960s and early 1970s into their own cultural context, creating the hybrid now known as Khmer-language rock or "Khmer Rock."

Upon returning to the States, Holtzman and his brother, Zac, began foraging for Khmer Rock in record stores. This eventually inspired them to create a band that could perform their beloved Khmer Rock. Determined to find a Cambodian vocalist to help complete their new dream project, the brothers began searching the Little Phnom Penh neighborhood in Long Beach.

"Little Phnom Penh is about a half-hour from where we live in Los Angeles," Ethan Holtzman says from his Los Angeles home. "There's about 50,000 Cambodians living there."

Their quest led them to the Dragon House, an under-the-radar restaurant/nightclub where the brothers found Nimol entertaining dinner guests.

After just a couple of songs, the Holtzmans knew the alluring singer was what Dengue Fever needed to be complete. "There were five other singers up there with her, and there was a band behind her, but her voice just rose up and filled the room really nicely," Ethan Holtzman says.

Fast-forward six years: Nimol, Ethan Holtzman and Zac Holtzman have transformed the group from a band that performed cover songs of Cambodian vocalists (like Sin Sisamouth and Ros Sereysothea) into an "all-star" band that records almost solely original material.

"The first album was covers with a couple of originals," Ethan Holtzman says. "And we had to start with that ... because Nimol didn't know anything about what it was like to write a new, original song. That started the (learning) process.

"I think (with 'Venus on Earth') we've really found our voice, and I think we'll continue to be inspired by music that we all like ... we'll grow and experiment and try to make strong albums that we feel really good about. (Commercialism) is not in any part of my mind. As long as we're comfortable with it and we like it, that's good enough. If the critics like it, that's better. And if the records are selling, that's a bonus."