The music sounds like something discovered in the lost archives of Kampuchea radio – smoked-out ‘70s-era jungle rock laced with Khmer instruments and melodies. The sharp, plink-plink sounds of the Khmer xylophone bounce against distorted guitar in brooding, Grateful Dead-esque sonic landscapes. The tro – a single-stringed Khmer violin of sorts – screams along to funky bass lines and moody, expressive breaks.
The music spilling from the Kok Thlok house in far west Phnom Penh is the latest collaborative effort of Gildas Maronneaud, a pre-school music teacher and instrumental force in the local music scene. His band remains nameless, and others involved remain coy about the “contemporary experimental” project built on Khmer and Western instrumentation. The nucleus comprises Kanika Pheang on drums and tro; Phat Sothlideth on the roneat, or Khmer xylophone, Adrian Jayraed on guitars, and Maronneaud on bass.
“It’s not about me,” says Maronneaud, the group’s uncomfortable French-Khmer spokesman. “It’s about the Khmer musicians. They are really, really good. They are masters.” The capital will get its first taste of the band on May 5, when the group and friends descend on The Alley Cat Cafe for a Cinco de Mayo party. “I will invite many artists from Kok Thlok to come,” Adrian says. “And we will jam.”
In the face of the imminent destruction of the Preah Suramarit National Theatre in 2008, the performers living there needed a new place to call home. Kok Thlok, founded in 2006, was largely a reaction to the theatre’s demise, and the group continues to play an important role at the centre of modern performing arts.
“Kok Thlok used to play lots of concerts with electric and traditional instruments, old Khmer rock ‘n’ roll songs,” Adrian explains. “They can play all those old songs, and they play them with the roneat and the tro. And it’s really interesting, because when you do a party and the roneat and the tro can answer, question and answer, it’s really crazy, very beautiful.”
Anonymous beginnings are something of a forte for The Alley Cat Cafe, an intimate, diner-style Mexicana joint located on the Street 19 alley. In 2006, a Tasmanian guitarist named Julian Poulson had recently befriended an intoxicating young female vocalist by the name of Kak Chanthy. The two had chemistry, and friends at the restaurant offered up a slice of the dining room floor to try out their new sound on a live audience.
Maronneaud, invited by Poulson, was at The Alley Cat that night, too. Then, as now, the band had no name, and few involved would dare speculate about what, if any, promise the future held. From that initial jam session, Poulson went on to build The Cambodian Space Project, a band of which Maronneaud is still a “huge” part.
For family and work reasons – he is a husband, father and teacher – Maronneaud prefers to play close to home, and these days, CSP is often on the road and outside the country. His latest project is in some ways an attempt to form a band that will not require such travel commitments. It is also, in deeper ways, a means to connect with his heritage. “I prefer to play with Khmer musicians,” he says. “I am half Khmer.”
Working alongside Kanika Pheang and Phat Sothlideth, the three form an easy relationship, their musical synergies evident in the music they make. It is the foundation on which some greater musical endeavor could surely can be built, and their Cinco de Mayo show holds as much promise as that first anonymous Alley Cat show, even if no one dares to say it.
WHO: Kok Thlok & associates
WHAT: Khmer rock fusion
WHEN: 8:30pm May 5
WHERE: The Alley Cat Cafe, St. 19 Alley
WHY: They could well go into the annals of Phnom Penh musical lore