My love affair with Dengue Fever has been so fast and furious, you could even call it a Tokyo drift. Friend Ben from work sent me an email promising I would like them and within days I had two of their cds. including Venus on Earth, their most recent and most varied to date and saw them perform marvellously at Southpaw. Their stage show is just as impressive as their music. Chhom Nimol is a tiny jewel, decked out in shiny silver who possesses an incredible voice. She was surrounded on stage by the dead handsome Zac Holzman and an array of fun loving musicians. If you have the chance to see them, do it, they sound even better live than on the album.

Brothers Zac and Ethan Holzman found Nimol in LA after discovering coming upon Cambodia's rich history of pop music on a trip to the country. Tragically nearly all Cambodian musicians like Sinn Sisamouth and others were killed when the Pol Pot regime came to power in the seventies and the legacy of their music was nearly lost. Dengue Fever looks to revive that music and the result is one of the greatest things I have listened to in a very long time.

When I put on the first song I was reminded of eating sushi in Providence, where they would play a soundtrack I adored, it was Japanese pop music and it made me realize that the world is infinitely large and always full of amazing things to discover. Dengue Fever is such a discovery.

The sound is psychedelic pop that would be right at home in a James Bond inspired spy film. Nimol warbles in her native language, Khmer, with the majestically bearded Holzman sometimes lending his vocals too. At first he seemed like an intrusion into the magical and world her voice creates, but those duet songs: Tiger Phone Card and Sober Driver are now among my favorites, though if pressed to choose I'd say Seeing Hands is my very favorite.

I really can't recommend this album enough, it's exotic, fun, different, exciting, and I just love it so much, I hope you will too.

See more: Albums

Posted on March 10, 2008