Dengue Fever
Mohawk, April 27“Psychedelic surf cumbia,” by a Brooklyn sixpiece named for Incan corn liquor and trafficking in accordion-driven 1970s slink based in the Peruvian Amazon, and late-1960s Cambodian psyche pop from an equally Anglo L.A. quintet are ultimately distinguished via one crucial difference: Chhom Nimol. While Chicha Libre opened with 50 minutes’ worth of indigenous electro-tingle (“Sonido Amazonico” and even Moog novelty “Popcorn”), Dengue Fever’s hour and 10 minutes of high-energy Khmer rock rode the unforgettable cry of its petite Southeast Asian oracle. Sleepwalking Through the Mekong, the group’s new rock doc, finds Zac and Ethan Holtzman not only winning the musical lottery to their Khmer fetish when Nimol answers an open call for a Cambodian singer, but in the film’s journey back to Nimol’s homeland flows a tributary of cultural, historical, and musical indelibility. Nimol, dressed here in 3-inch heels and a mermaid-green sequin dress that didn’t allow 45-degree angles from the torso, could be the doll face of any DVD, but as the voice of a pop genre all but eradicated by the Khmer Rouge, she’s a world ambassador. “Lost in Laos” first celebrated Austin’s Cambodian weather clearing for Mohawk’s brimming patio, yet third song “New Years Eve” exploded, Ethan’s Farfisa-aping keyboard meeting brother Zac’s snaking guitar lines. Nimol’s a cappella intro to “Hold My Hips” met with rockist obedience, while the heavy “Seeing Hand” linked the organ overdrives of Procol Harum and the Benevento-Russo Duo as if led by a sitar in the singer’s whinny. “A Go Go” put the crowd to singing as the Holtzmans traded solos, followed by a clinic in universal garage rock: “Pow Pow,” “Sni Bong,” and “One Thousand Tears of a Tarantula,” jammed by Chicha Libre along with a closing collaboration between the two groups, “Mr. Orange.” One last song, one final glimpse of Nimol, and even the rains two hours later couldn’t wash away the contagion of Dengue Fever.
This article appears in May 1 • 2009.
