Rock the Khmer

ONE OF THESE THINGS IS NOT LIKE THE OTHERS Cambodian immigrant Nimol is backed by her American rocker friends.

Photograph: James Hickey (jameshickeystudio.com).

Dengue Fever consists of five L.A. indie-rock guys and Ch’hom Nimol, a Cambodian immigrant who lives in an ethnic enclave of Long Beach, surrounded by hairdressers and eateries from her native land. Excepting the time she spends with her bandmates, the singer’s interaction with Americans remains scarce, leaving her English wobbly. Accordingly, for an interview, a translator is standing by: Senon Williams, Dengue Fever’s bass player.

“When did you move to California?” Nimol is asked.

“Yeah,” she eagerly responds, “I live in California.”

There is a pregnant pause before Williams chimes in. Surely, his command of Khmer will facilitate the conversation. “When did you move here, Nimol?” he says—not in Khmer, but rather in loud, clear English.

“Oh,” Nimol says. “I move here in 2000.”

And so go the inner workings of this improbable group. “We’ve learned to speak Nimol,” drummer Paul Smith later declares. Such cryptic lines of communication seem appropriate for Dengue Fever, which thrives on a circular cultural exchange. The sextet has revived an oft-neglected strain of pop: Cambodian ’60s music that crossbred traditional Khmer sounds with psychedelic rock introduced to the country by U.S. soldiers during the Vietnam War. The group lays waste to any lingering notions of “authenticity” in world music. The Cambodian artists who Dengue Fever emulates were themselves indebted to such exotic figures as Country Joe McDonald, giving Nimol no greater claim to the music than her Californian bandmates.

Dengue Fever’s own roots stretch back to the late ’90s, when organ player Ethan Holtzman ditched his job and apartment to travel around Southeast Asia. In Cambodia, he found himself in the bed of a pickup truck, surrounded by carsick locals equipped with helmets and livestock; his traveling companion, stricken with dengue fever, sat up front. “The Cambodians were throwing up on each other,” Holtzman says. “I was sitting in a little ball.”

As with any great road trip, this one had a banging soundtrack: The driver was blasting songs by Ros Serey Sothea and Sin Sisamouth, ’60s pop stars who perished under Pol Pot. Holtzman returned to Los Angeles entranced by the strange recordings, with their shrill-voiced Khmer singing and groovy, Farfisa-driven music. He began playing the songs with his guitarist brother, Zac; at night, the Holtzmans haunted Long Beach clubs searching for a singer.

The organist says that among all the young immigrants “wearing prom dresses and singing karaoke,” Nimol ranked supreme. Born to a family of performers, she was new to the States and barely out of her teens. In Cambodia, Nimol had entertained royalty; now, she was singing at a restaurant, the Dragon House, and studiously fending off her future bandmates’ overtures. “Her sister looked at me and said, ‘Ch’hom Nimol no sing with you never!’ ” Ethan Holtzman recounts. “Eventually, she agreed to come to our studio. We were auditioning other singers—they were all like, ‘Ch’hom Nimol’s never coming!’ But she walked in, done up like a Cambodian Janet Jackson. They all froze. She grabbed the mike, stepped a foot back and just blew everybody away.”

Dengue Fever has subsequently released two albums: a self-titled debut of Sothea covers and 2005’s Escape from Dragon House (M80), a set of original songs faithful to the style. The sextet plays rock clubs as well as world-music festivals, and even toured Cambodia—“It was the first time they saw Americans embracing their past,” Smith notes. Nonetheless, Nimol continues to moonlight at a Long Beach nightclub, New Paradise. It’s unclear whether she prefers it to her work with the band. “Dengue Fever only me and rock & roll,” she says. “Rock, rock, rock.”

“Nimol complains about Dengue Fever because we play all these rock songs,” Williams translates.

“New Paradise, they have one song, cha cha cha, I break,” she says. “People come to dance.”

“In the restaurant, she sings one tune and then relaxes for four,” Williams explains. “So it’s easier at the nightclub. Right, Nimol?”

“But I never sing in front of American people the way I do with Dengue Fever,” Nimol says. “People come smiling! I’m very, very happy!”

Dengue Fever plays McCarren Park Pool and Sound Fix Sun 1.