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Respect returns to Štvanice

Cambodian rock band headlines world beat festival
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By Darrell Jónsson
For The Prague Post
June 25th, 2008 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
Cambodian pop star Chhom Nimol, on the phone, fronts Dengue Fever, Saturday night's headline band.
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COURTESY PHOTO
Oumou Sangare makes her Prague debut at this year's festival.
Respect Festival


When: June 27 and 28
Where: Štvanice Island
Tickets: 400 Kč for one day, 510 Kč for both days, available through Ticketpro and at the venue
For a complete schedule, check www.respectmusic.cz
As local audiences have come to expect since its founding in 1998, the Respect World Music Festival can usually satisfy most world-beat music fans while also packing a few thought-provoking surprises. This year’s program, featuring nine globe-trotting acts performing Friday and Saturday on Štvanice Island, is no exception.
Bad news at presstime: The Kasai All Stars, scheduled to headline Friday night, had to cancel because of visa problems. For those who like Afro-beat, the way the group mixes ancient Congotronic funk with traditional costumes and dance would have been quite a thrill. However, Saturday night offers a special treat for fans of that sweet African R&B-meets-the-Malian-Sahara sound, with Oumou Sangare bringing her brass-spiced desert blues to town. This will be the debut appearance in Prague for the reigning queen of Wassulou singers.
There will also be music for those with more European tastes peppered throughout the program, from acts like Marseilles’ Lo Cor De La Plana. But like most things at the Respect Festival, there is a delightful twist. La Plana are the Occitan masters of the southern European polyphonic style that once led John Cale to remark, “If I could sing like that, I would sell my soul to the devil.”
No less picturesque will be Saturday’s headliner, Dengue Fever, who draw inspiration from a place and time far away from the more popular world-beat paths. Founded in Los Angeles in 2003, Dengue Fever draws from the lesser-known phenomena of ’60s and ’70s Cambodian rock for its distinctive sound.
Speaking of how he was first taken by the Mekong musical spell, Degue Fever guitarist and cofounder Zac Holtzman says, “I was really attracted to those crazy Cambodian vocal styles where they crack into the higher-pitch falsettos. They call it a ‘ghost voice,’ where they almost break into a yodel in the higher registers. That impressed me as very beautiful, and the way they sort of sneak around and bend notes, in a way that sounds a little bit Indian and perhaps out of pitch to the Western ear. Then there is all the surf guitar and Farfisa sound that we incorporated into our band.”
The distinctive electric-organ Farfisa/surf guitar sound Holtzman refers to is an echo from Cambodia’s past that sounds uncannily like ’60s garage-rock psychedelia. As Holtzman describes it, “During the Vietnam war, there were these radio stations the American soldiers were listening to. Cambodians picked up the same airwaves and were suddenly listening to Hendrix, Funkadelic and British psychedelia, and were influenced by it. It was still pretty traditional back then, so singers would sing their traditional music during the day. At night there were clubs where they performed the more rocking, Western-influenced music.”
Enabling Dengue Fever to capture the best of these influences is the Cambodian-born emigré Chhom Nimol. Already a well-known singer in Cambodia, she migrated to the United States in 2000, only to return five years later with a five-piece American band in tow. The fervor as Dengue Fever and Nimol became the focus of Cambodia’s national media for a few weeks is documented in the 2005 documentary Sleepwalking in the Mekong.
But the visit had its unsettling moments. Asked if the band was able to visit any of the ’60s legends that influenced them during their stay, Holtzman replies, “When the Khmer Rouge arrived [in 1975], they pretty much murdered anyone with any Western influences, any education, anyone who wasn’t a farmer, and anyone they thought maybe knew enough to cause trouble. Most of the musicians we were influenced by were unfortunately killed or disappeared.”
Although at first Dengue Fever may have been considered another novelty act in a rapidly changing music scene always thirsty for something new, over the past five years the band has managed to build a strong following among both Asian and non-Asian listeners. These days, Holtzman says it’s not unusual to have a 50 percent Asian audience at their North American shows. Their big break in Europe came earlier this year at Sevilla’s Womex showcase, where National Public Radio’s Will Hermes reported, “Truly, you haven’t lived until you’ve danced wildly to ’60s-style Cambodian psychedelia with a few hundred drunken Spaniards.”
While festival-goers are certainly hoping the Saturday night closing set will be full of such reverie, there’s a final Respect event worth catching that will definitely be more sedate. On Monday, the visionary meditative zither music from Israel’s Toy Vivo Trio will be presented in a special performance at Prague’s Spanish Synagogue. And for those of you who want to sound like the handsome devils in La Cor De La Plana, band founder Manu Theron will be offering a singing workshop Thursday, June 26, at the French Institute for considerably less than the Faustian price John Cale was ready to pay.

Darrell Jónsson can be reached at features@praguepost.com


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