Dengue Fever: Escape from Dragon House

Label: BRG

With vintage psychedelia a booming genre lately and reissue labels looking to more and more obscure scenes for material, the late ‘60s/early ‘70s pop-psych that came out of Cambodia was documented on the compilation Cambodian Rocks (the most famous; there have been others with better documentation) and has found a lot of fans, including a bunch of guys in Los Angeles who formed a band playing that style. When they found an authentic Cambodian pop star living in L.A., Chhom Nimol (who sings mostly in Khmer, though she essays some English on this album), who agreed to be their vocalist, they went from an amusing idea to a thrilling reality. When they moved from all covers to, on this disc, mostly originals (the exception being the Ros Serey Sothea classic “Tip My Canoe”), with Ethiopian music added to the mix here and there, they became not just lovable but admirable, both fun and exciting. (Steve)