Male and female.
Fire and water.
Dark and light.
Life and death.
Many natural forces that might at first seem contrary are in fact complementary, a concept embodied in the yin-yang of Chinese philosophy. Together they interact to create a sum far greater than their parts. Such is Krom (‘the group’), quite possibly the most reclusive band in Cambodia. Public performances are rare; interviews even more so.
In Krom, East meets West. Mournful delta blues guitar mingles with celestial Cambodian vocals. Tales of human atrocities are tinged with the slightest suggestion of hope. Angelic opera singers Sophea and Sopheak Chamroeun, 22 and 21 respectively, are backed by Australian guitarist Christopher Minko, a man onto whose features more than a thousand lifetimes have been etched.
Nearing 60, Minko is not without his demons. A professional musician with Australian cult band The Bachelors in Prague in the late 1980s, he is today a recovering alcoholic who smokes more than three packs a day, wears any colour so long as it’s black and has been in a near-permanent state of mourning since the death of his wife, the mother of his only daughter. When he speaks of her, cross-legged and barefoot on the floor of Krom’s studio in a tiny Phnom Penh alleyway, a single tear slowly meanders down one of the many ravines that years of hard living have carved deep into his flesh.
Sophea, dressed in white t-shirt and black trousers, sits in quiet contemplation just a few feet away. As haunting tracks from newly completed second album Neon Dark spool out softly from the speakers, she tilts her chin upwards and closes her eyes, lips moving with the lyrics – penned by her own hand – in silent song. A child of The Building, a tumbledown haven for Cambodian artisans, she speaks only a few times during our two-hour interview, offering up sound bites of wisdom in a whisper whenever Minko ducks out for a smoke.
Ying, from debut album Songs From The Noir, is Sophea’s favourite Krom song – the first on which she and Minko collaborated. “It’s about someone who dies and is thinking about the people she left behind; it’s about Chris’ wife,” she says. “She’s in a very big world but she’s all alone and there is no sky. She regrets that her time was very short and she will never grow old because she died. She wants to thank the person she left behind because their life together was very good.”
She’s Seven Years Old (Her Body Sold), from Neon Dark, is perhaps Krom’s most disturbing song to date. It recounts the true story of a young Cambodian child sold into sexual slavery and was described by BBC Radio broadcaster Mark Coles as “Harrowing; a very disturbing, powerful song.”
Minko was motivated to write the lyrics after reading a story in the local press that described the rescue of a girl from sex traders on the Thai-Cambodia border. The photo accompanying the article showed her chained to a bed: “a horrendous mix of fear and utter bewilderment shown within the eyes of the enslaved young girl”, says Minko, noting that the song “is meant to make the listener feel uncomfortable, very uncomfortable”.
Poised to perform at the Vibe Music Festival this week alongside Master Kong Nay, Minko invited The Advisor into Krom’s studio to talk noir, sex trafficking and why white boys shouldn’t do Khmer music.
The liner notes on Songs From The Noir describe the album as ‘very personal love songs by a man deep in grief’.
Krom’s music comes from the heart, it really does. My wife was an angel. Without her death, I would not be doing Krom. When she died, I went back to music. Music was the way I dealt with her death and I’m probably still dealing with it that way. I’m very, very thankful for her. The mother of my now 19-year-old daughter died in 2010, which gave me an enormous emotional kick – probably something I’m still dealing with to this very day. In writing, what I did when she passed away was sought to make a 14-song album for her. One of the early songs was The Ying. Sophea came in and I just hummed the tune once – ‘Got no money, love you like a monkey, I no lie to you, I talk true’ – and Sophea went downstairs and did one take and it was done. From that, I recognised immediately Sophea’s quite phenomenal talents. That really led to Sophea and I working together to create the first album, Songs From The Noir. We worked on it for 14 months; we didn’t go out and perform or anything.
‘Elusive, reclusive and exclusive’ is how you refer to yourselves.
One of the core objectives of Krom is our musicianship. We really slide towards an original, high-quality standard of music. We spent 14 months working on the album, just hiding ourselves away. Krom is a ‘quiet listening’ band and unfortunately in Phnom Penh you don’t have listening venues. Sophea and Sopheak are classically trained opera singers from the age of 12, so they bring that into the music they sing. On top of that we’re an acoustic band, so I work on delta blues picking and the quieter the audience, the better we can play because we can actually bring in finesse; we’re not fighting against the sound wall. Krom is not a pub band; we’re not a dance band.
Your content is pretty heavy; the sort of material designed more for contemplation than distraction.
Yeah. On the new album, Neon Dark, we have two songs that are specifically related to the sex trafficking industry.
One is Seven Years Old (Her Body Sold), which debuted on BBC Radio earlier this year. What’s the other?
We’ll give you a sneak listen to it! It’s an eight-and-a-half minute song about Sukamvit Road, the famous hooker street in Bangkok. This will be the last song I’ll write about this because they’re exhausting songs to write.
Weighty issues…
…that need to be talked about and they’re not talked about enough. Sukamvit Road is a very hard song in its terminology. My wife was Thai. I’ve lived here for 18 years and I’ve seen the underbelly of Asia, all those perspectives. When it comes to human trafficking, I’ve seen the consequences at very close quarters; I’ve looked deeply into the murderous nature of this industry that’s still denied to this very day. A good example is a newspaper article I read the other day. I love the New York Times and they had a front-page article about the ‘lure’ of the Thai industry. What people are denying is that approximately 20% of Thailand’s GDP is built on sex. It’s an entrenched billion-dollar industry that involves shipping truck loads of very young Cambodian women and very young women from Myanmar and Laos into Bangkok. The article spoke about Thailand’s unbelievable skill at being able to ‘lure’ tourists into Thailand, but the ‘lure’ is actually sex. You look at this explosion of genres – noir; art, everyone looking at the underbelly of Asia – but all of the authors, all of the artists, to this very day romanticise it. It’s voyeuristic and it glorifies it. No one’s actually saying the cold, hard truth, which is that this is a murderous industry and it’s being run by the ruling elite. Am I sensitive to it? Yes, for many reasons, but also because Cambodia is well and truly on the way to doing the same. And I’m even more sensitive to it because of something I only became aware of the other day when I was talking to a very close friend about exactly this issue. Sophea is 22 and Sopheak is 21, so given the opportunity at the age of 12 to work within the arts, as they were, who knows what potential can come out? I’m very proud of Sophea; I think she’s quite courageous. You look at the material we take on with Krom. Some of Sophea’s Khmer lyrics, which will be translated into English, are much more powerful in the second album. I’m quite careful about how we deal with these very sensitive issues. In Seven Years Old I think we managed to do it with finesse, talk about things that are very uncomfortable, like paedophilia. I speak deliberately like a newscaster so there’s no overuse of the vocals. Another good example is the song Tango Traffic Tango, but there’s one thing that’s missing: it should be sung by a Khmer, because it’s ‘Welcome to OUR daughters; we breed them on OUR farms.’ But up until now – and I would not expect this of Sophea – Cambodian singers aren’t ready to say these things in a song.
That was going to be my next question: do other Cambodian singers ever touch on such subjects?
I think Sophea’s starting to. Passion is about Khmer women becoming stronger. She’s starting to write lyrics that have got a social justice edge. I think she’s the first Joan Baez or Bob Dylan of Cambodia in her own way. It’s subtle – and it has to be subtle.
Sophea describes your music as ‘complete’, even though for the most part there are only vocals and a single guitar.
There’s a reason for that, which is interesting musically. I play delta blues picking, so I’m working six strings. You actually play rhythm, bass and the core melody all at once. That’s why we don’t need a bass guitarist. But I play in modal tuning, so I tune my guitar differently. Joni Mitchell always plays in modal tuning. There’s a relationship between modal tunings and Eastern music, so it gives Sophea a good base to work from. There’s quite a natural fit there. I’m exceptionally pleased that contrary to a lot of people who said we could never get the Khmer language out there, the BBC’s going: ‘You don’t need to understand the language; the voices are so beautiful.’ We sometimes sing English and Khmer together; Neon Dark’s got a bit more of that. The other thing that creates the unique Krom signature sound, the beauty behind Krom, is when I compose a song I’ll lay down normally one guitar, potentially two, in the studio. Sophea then comes in and I give it to her on a memory stick and she goes away. Rarely do I even hum a song. The whole key is that it has no influence from me, from the Western side. Sophea goes away and I actually get excited. I do! One of her pieces, Rain, just got me. On Neon Dark we introduce some pretty modern jazz guitar playing and Sophea’s done some phenomenal vocals.
So you work independently and then put it all together?
It’s about mutual respect, because once you try to be white boys influencing Khmer music it goes belly up. Maybe it’s something to do with age. I’m close to 60 and love being able to sit in the background. I’m a musician and my greatest passion is to see what Sophea and Sopheak come up with in these compositions.
Let’s talk briefly about the first album, Songs From The Noir. May I ask how you met your wife?
We were married 23 years, going right back into the ’80s when I was working in Thailand for the National Culture Commission. Her family owned stores in a famous market in Soi 12. After a very long courtship we were finally married and then she came to Australia. Anya, my daughter, was born in Australia and two years later we came to Cambodia; this was in 1996. We separated after 1997 and came back together in about 2007. She died in 2010 of pneumonia at the age of 42. That’s a rather sad story. It’s a very personal story that I don’t like to go into too much.
Mourning seems central to Krom’s sound.
At my age, I’ve been through quite a lot and I’ve seen quite a lot and I find there is enormous sadness and tragedy in life. I do recognise the dark side of life. The words of Krom are not wrong: we are reclusive and elusive. At this point in time I just love making music. Songs From The Noir will always be a very special album for Anya’s mother, who I still really love to this day. Neon Dark is completely different: it’s a real celebration of music and focuses on Sophea and Sopheak. Krom is innovative and creative. I love what Sophea is doing; I love what Sopheak is doing; we have a great relationship with our producer Saroeun and slide guiyarist/saxoponist Jimmy B’s a music colleague of more than 30 years, so he knows me backwards. He knows the music we’re seeking: it’s stripped back deliberately, going on the old tried and true principle that if you can’t stand on stage with just a guitar and voice you shouldn’t stand on stage. Some of our songs would probably sound great with percussion, but we don’t want that sound.
Musically, how does Neon Dark differ from Songs From The Noir?
It’s a fuller sound. I’m having much more fun with the guitar; I’m having a ball! [Laughs] Some of the songs are quite uplifting, although we haven’t walked away from the social justice issues we’ll always touch base on. I hate to use the word, but there’s a wonderful magic between the musicians in Krom. I turned down the chance to record with Master Kong Nay. I have a problem with white boys doing Khmer music: it would’ve sounded clichéd.
Seven Years Old (Her Body Sold) is perhaps Krom’s most powerful track to date.
I’m good friends with noir author Christopher G Moore and noir artist Chris Coles and we get into these arguments all the time. This whole noir genre is romanticising what is fundamentally a murderous, billion-dollar industry. People die. I’ve seen it. I’ve witnessed it. I was with Thai cops for two years observing this stuff. I’ve seen rooms full of 13-year-old girls from Myanmar whacked out of their heads. Again I revert back to Sophea and Sopheak being shining examples of what young women can achieve given the right choices. I’m not saying ban prostitution – it’s been here since day one – but I will argue with great confidence that 98% of women are forced into prostitution. That’s the bottom line.
What angers me is the argument that working in a girly bar or being a professional girlfriend is ‘a better choice’ than working in rice fields or a factory.
Bullshit! Pure bullshit! The other thing is that 98% of these women are doped up through drugs or alcohol in order to cope with what they’ve got to deal with. It’s bullshit. There are alternatives; I’ve seen them manifest themselves. What drives the industry? Why is it now at its peak? International economics, the downfall of communism, the advance of capitalism and pure unadulterated greed has allowed the ruling elite to literally manipulate nations. In Seven Years Old, at one point I say: ‘And the ruling elite are dripping with gold, all that money they have made from those bodies sold.’ Sukamvit Road is probably the hardest song, because I really spell it out: ‘Christians, Buddhists, Muslims young and old, they all take a walk down Sukamvit Road.’ I actually had fun with this one: I used Biblical terms like ‘damnation’ and ‘salvation’. [Laughs]
Has being exposed to such horrors changed your perspective on what it means to be human?
That’s a very complex question! If anything, the chaos and the fact these societies all live on the edge of anarchy – you do see life in its extremes, from the best to the worst. I think I’ve been very privileged. I come from the wild ’80s, rock ‘n’ roll, high-flying everything, you know? I walked away from that industry into disability work, which is exceptionally humbling. I regard moving to Cambodia as an enormous privilege and I’ve never forgotten that, but most outsiders do. We are guests and we need to be very respectful in that regard, not abuse and exploit Cambodia. On another level I hold Cambodian culture in very high regard: it’s an incredibly musical culture. That potential from the ’60s is finally coming back. Another song, Fractured Fragrance, just sort of popped out. It’s a bit like a whimsical love song. Even though we have a dark edge, we also have a light side to us: we do songs like Country; we don’t want to be singing from the depths of despair all the time. But a lot of the subjects we deal with are very heavy: with Sukamvit Road, you’re worn out after eight-and-a-half minutes.
How many guitars are there on Sukamvit Road? It sounds as though you’re playing six.
Just the one! That’s the picking style. The strings go into harmony, so every string has a vibration and if you do it perfectly a third note pops out. When it comes to guitar, I’m a fanatical purist. I don’t even like putting pick-up on my guitar. I prefer to play straight into the microphone. I’m very influenced by Leo Kottke, who’s just phenomenal.
Amazing how such disparate sounds, delta blues and Khmer vocals, go so well together.
It’s quite remarkable. Sometimes I listen and go: ‘Did we do that?’ [Laughs] I still go to Bangkok a lot – I’m making a stupa in a temple there for Anya’s mother – and while I’m there I’ve been moving Songs From The Noir into massage parlours and bars. I actually parked myself in Sukamvit Road, lived smack bang in the middle of it for quite a while after Mam died, looking into this dark side of that underbelly. There was this one guy running a sports bar who could never quite work me out. He’d say: ‘You’re just observing, aren’t you?’ The last time I was there, he was outright unfriendly to me. You could feel the antagonism. But the whole point of these songs – Seven Years Old, Sukamvit Road – is to make ageing expats and everyone else feel uncomfortable. I’m a single father; my 19-year-old daughter lives upstairs. When we’re playing as Krom it astounds me: the people we’re singing about are in the audience! I was in my late 30s and Anya’s mother was in her late 20s when we married, so there wasn’t this enormous age gap. Every time Krom plays, we play to the people I’m writing about: they’re here, in their 50s, with their 18-year-old girlfriends. Delusion! You’re a woman. When you were 18, did you want a man in his 50s? No! It defies nature. It’s an illusion. The last thing I want to see is my daughter ending up in an industry like that. You can see the tragedy that comes out of it. I accept that Krom is a niche market, that it makes people uncomfortable – that’s the objective. Over and above that, I still believe the music will win; that combination of guitar and voices…
…..
WHO: Krom
WHAT: A rare public performance with Master Kong Nay
WHERE: Doors, #18 Street 84 & 47
WHEN: 7:30pm August 24
WHY: They’re elusive, reclusive and exclusive