Dengue Fever - “Interigation (Live at WFMU)”
Whoever has already heard Cambodian pop from the 60s has had that strange effect of finding all the familiar elements of garage / surf rock, all the guitar fuzz, echoes and heavy beat, yet being mesmerised by the undecypherable otherness of the singing (undecypherable by Western ears, of course).
Denge Fever are keeping that heritage alive and certainly kicking, an L.A. band fronted by a Cambodian singer.
In this track I hear yet another “world pop” ingredient that I especially love: that sinewy guitar line reminds me of Ethiopian greats such as Mahmoud Ahmed or Mulatu Astatqé.
When a band avoids the empty clichés, while at the same time sampling everything that’s great about international pop, we get the best of all worlds.
