At last, Dengue Fever has made an album that quite nearly matches their incredible live performances. The group began at least as a tribute to the playful yet heavy psychedelic pop scene that flourished in Cambodia before Pol Pot came to power and silenced countless suspected dissidents in that country's infamous killing fields in the mid-1970s. Like the Cambodian pop music that so enamored them, Dengue Fever began by revitalizing strong elements of '60s surf and garage rock in their sound. Over time, they've expanded their influences to Ethiopian funk and modern dance-rock. Once a multi-culti California band with a Cambodian-born singer paying homage to the past, Dengue Fever now plays original, swirling, psychedelic pop. With Western audiences ever more open to hybrid sounds, it will be a huge surprise if Venus on Earth doesn't allow Dengue Fever to quit their day jobs for good, especially after the film about their trip to Cambodia, Sleepwalking through the Mekong, hits the festival circuit in 2008. --Mike McGonigal
Album Description
"A unique and surprisingly danceable group that combines a beautiful Khmer-language vocalist from Cambodia and a quintet of seasoned locals with a knack for mixing Southeast Asian pop, Vietnam-war-era lounge music, klezmer, ska, surf rock, and Ethiopian jazz." -- SPIN psychedelic. They are world music. They are anything but mainstream. There is virtually no other band in the world playing "Khmer Rock," the style of 1960s Cambodian rock derived from Armed Forces Radio in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. Sophomore album Venus On Earth features eleven original songs that expand on the band's sound but will please hardcore fans of both the group and the genre. There is no other band like Dengue Fever, which garners fans in everyone from indie kids to well-heeled world music consumers.
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