Category: Music

Racheting up the suspense

She’s an African-born French jazz singer famed for pop experimentalism, recording an album with Dizzy Gillespie’s drummer, being signed to the same label as junior UK jazz genius Jamie Cullum and touring with Afrocentric sax legend Archie Shepp. He’s a pianist/singer/trumpet player/composer/conductor/actor/writer/teacher/showman/comedian who has performed at Manhattan’s music monument Carnegie Hall, written film scores such as Le Courage D’Aimer (‘The Courage To Love’) and caused something of a stir when he appeared in front of the camera for the first time in a recent film by what might just be France’s most famous director.

Mina Agossi and Laurent Couson, who’ve been circling each other in the international jazz ring for more than a decade, are finally coming together this month for a Southeast Asia tour. Expect the unexpectable: the duo are ratcheting up the suspense factor by promising a high-end evening of one-off, never-heard-before, kind-of-made-up-on-the-spot jazz improv – organised by Phnom Penh’s very own jazz leviathan, Philippe Javelle – within the historic confines of the city’s most distinguished hotel. Nice. Laurent Couson put down his baton briefly to tell The Advisor about cornering Quincy Jones, having to play a Rachmaninov concerto live during a movie shoot and the one – slightly annoying – question he always gets asked by journalists in Asia (apart from this one).

So. You’re a pianist, singer, trumpet player, composer, conductor, actor, writer, teacher, showman and comedian. Did I forget anything? Your business cards must be enormous.

[Laughs] Something like that, yes! I don’t know. I try to do my best.

Take us back to the very beginning.

When I was very small, I was listening to classical music only. It’s hard to choose one favourite composer, but as far as I remember when I was a young child I was only quiet when I was listening to classical music. That was the only thing that could keep me quiet! So that’s why my parents believed this was maybe the way for me. It was, I think.

You’ve worked with some extraordinary names, not least Quincy Jones – one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century, according to Time magazine.
I was very young when I did that. In fact I started my career as a composer and music arranger at Radio France. They gave me a lot of very interesting missions to arrange and conduct some great concerts in Paris. That’s how I met many big names. Amazing because I was only 22 years old, maybe, and I had to arrange this music and conduct the symphony orchestra for the concert Quincy Jones held in Paris for his birthday. It was a very quick but very intense experience.

Was it intimidating to find yourself working alongside a living legend?
Yeah, yeah, sure! Of course! I still get very nervous. What can I say? Yes! I remember that we talked together and I had the chance to get him to listen to my music for a while. I went to his room before the concert and asked him: ‘Please, please, can you listen to my music?’ I was listening to my music with Quincy Jones sitting near me and he said: ‘Wow! You’re a very talented young composer and I’m sure that you’re going to have a big career.’ He gave me the contact for one agent, his manager, but I never called him… [Laughs] I was too young, not ready for this!

You’ve said in previous interviews that you’re a classical musician first then you moved into jazz and have dabbled in pop as well, but there’s no difference between them: “The only important thing is making good music.”
Exactly! But I also believe that all music is not necessarily at the same level. It’s not the same work to compose a symphony as it is to compose a song, for example, but sometimes it’s more difficult to compose a song than it is a symphony, so…

Really?!
[Laughs] Yeah! It’s not really the same work because in jazz and in pop songs you have to work based on your feelings. In classical music, you need to have studied for many years beforehand. I was in a movie recently and all the journalists ask me all the time: ‘What is the difference between making music and being an actor?’ and I say: ‘The difference is quite simple. You can be an actor in one day, but you cannot play Rachmaninov’s concerto in one day.’

This is of course Ces Amours-La (‘What War May Bring’), by French director Claude Lelouch. Not only did you compose the score, you also made your acting debut playing a pianist and conductor caught up in World War II. Lelouch chose you because the character has to play Rachmaninov live during the shoot. Love the audition scene.
That was Rachmaninov’s second concerto – my biggest challenge in this movie.

What was it like, making the transition from composing movie scores to finding yourself in front of the camera?
For me, the most difficult thing in this movie was to play music! [Laughs] I have a lot of musical scenes and all of them are played live, so I was very nervous about that. I wasn’t nervous at all about playing my role. I was nervous about playing the Rachmaninov concerto: you have to be very fast for these things! But I was working with one of the best directors ever, so that made me feel comfortable. We just made a new movie this summer together and I’ve worked with him for 10 years now – we’ve made five films so far. Every time, it seems like it’s his first movie, but he’s made 50 already, which have won almost all the best prizes around the world. He’s France’s most famous director. I have wanted to be like him all my life, but I am not so strong. I am someone who’s very nervous; I try my best to hide it, but I’m not relaxed at all.

And Lelouch uses the same process as Italian film director Federico Fellini: you, as the composer, weren’t allowed to see the film before you wrote the score?
Yes! Sometimes you have to improvise, but it doesn’t matter whether you learn the script because the script will change in the morning [Laughs] – if you’re lucky, by more than an hour before shooting. It’s because you want to have this spontaneous feeling; spontaneous emotion. This technique has worked for many years. In this last movie this summer, some French stars were involved and they were very uncomfortable with that [Laughs].

The character you played wasn’t too far removed from yourself, in as much as he’s a composer, a musician. Did that make it an easy role to assume?
Yes, I was playing this role because it was close to me. After this movie, I had a lot of proposals to appear in other movies – of course, because Claude Lelouch brings you a lot of propositions. Sometimes, when I did the auditions, they would call me to play a policeman or a doctor. I was not comfortable at all with these. I played this role well because it’s closest to me, but I don’t want to become an actor at all.

Not even a little bit?
Actually, I prefer moving: that’s why I’m in Thailand, because we’re writing and producing a movie that’s going to shoot here next year. I’m going to be in this movie because I get to write exactly what I do [Laughs].If I get any other crazy propositions, like this Claude Lelouch movie, why not? Why not? But I won’t run after it. Everybody’s asking me if I’ll do a new movie, so OK: I’ll do a new movie, but I will do a new movie that I write. I don’t want to fail in my project, so I want to do something I can be sure about. I don’t want to make any mistake in choosing the next movie, because after this one everybody says: ‘Wow, this guy is very good.’ I don’t want, after another film, for them to say: ‘Oh no! Finally, he is a very bad actor.’

Romeos & Juliettes, the dance performance you scored, is exquisite.
This is my most successful show, because it’s been travelling around the world for five years already and it’s full everywhere; it’s a big, big success. Maybe because it’s a mix of classical and hip hop culture. I met a hip hop choreographer who wanted to do our own version of Romeo & Juliet. He said: ‘OK, I want the Montagues and Capulets to dance to hip hop.’ And I said: ‘OK, I want to do symphonic hip hop.’ So we tried to do something that had never existed before. I think the audience likes this kind of meeting between young hip hop dancers and classical music.

You could be forgiven for thinking the two are this far apart [stretches out arms], but they go together surprisingly well.
Yeah, yeah! We use a huge symphonic orchestra with this electronic hip hop rhythm and I think it matches very well. The most difficult thing is teaching a symphonic orchestra how to grove! [Laughs]

What do you listen to in your down time?
Let me see, I can take my iPhone [holds phone aloft]. There are very different things: Brazilian music; Bartok; Bernstein; Bob Marley; Duke Ellington; Earth, Wind and Fire. Everything, really…

Jazz music today: what sort of state is it in?
I miss it when jazz is not a party. I don’t like jazz musicians who listen only to themselves – I hate this. You have to be joyful. And I miss the kind of jazz that was made in the 1940s and ’50s, to entertain the audience: this is the most important thing. What is my favourite? I really love jazz from South America now, which is what I listen to most. I’ve performed in Brazil; there are musicians everywhere there, in every city. I was at a festival there earlier this year; they have a huge culture. I miss that in Asia sometimes. Here, some musicians lack even general culture; not only music.

When you’re writing for yourself rather than a film or show, what do you write about?
I’m going to sing my songs in Phnom Penh. I talk about very private stories. I write for my voice: I have a poor voice; I’m not a great singer. I prefer to speak about my stories with music. All my songs are about women.

That’s very French heterosexual male of you. What can we expect when you get here?
I know Cambodia very well: I come every year because I’m the patron of Paediatricians of the World. We made a film about the organisation two years ago. I have some little daughters in Cambodia that I take care of; I have many friends there. I had wanted to make the film for many years.

And you’re bringing Mina Agossi with you.

Mina had been following me for many years. She’s probably the most famous jazz singer in France; she wins all the jazz awards. She kept telling me: ‘We have to do something together!’ I was trying to think what, because we’re very different in the type of music we like and the way we play. We have the same bass player, Eric Jacquot, who has been playing with us for 15 years. Eric arranged this. He said: ‘Now let’s go on the road together and see what happens.’ So the only thing I can say to you tonight is that I don’t know what’s going to happen! [Laughs] Let’s see, because I really don’t know what’s going to happen!

You must have a hunch. Philippe said it wouldn’t be just French jazz and it could be – in his words – ‘interactive’. He’s already described you as a showman and comedian.
[Laughs] Sure, sure, sure, sure. I’m a showman, so everything could happen! Everything! Mina and I know each other’s songs, so we’re going to mix them up. That’s the good thing about being a jazz musician: we don’t need much rehearsal or thinking, just go on stage and see what happens. We’re having a gig in Thailand next week and I’ll know the answer next week, after that first concert… [More laughter]

Is there anything particularly pressing that I’ve forgotten to ask you?
In Asia, journalists always ask me if I have a girlfriend.

And what do you tell them, just in case our readers want to know?
My answer is: ‘I don’t know.’ [Laughs]

The burn of hot wax

At the pinnacle of the late 1980s UK club scene, when places like the Blitz and people like Steve Strange ruled a Gomorrah of 24-hour gender-bending pop excess, the truly rebellious were breaking into abandoned school buildings in Brixton, wiring the places up with admirably jerry-rigged sound systems and shaking the windows with music that didn’t suck.

Paul Adair was a 20-something college radio DJ from small-town New Zealand. He had come of age on New Order, The Smiths, Cabaret Voltaire and early UK electronica. London was the fount of all music. Vinyl was the substrate.

“The ’80s,” says Adair, who spins under the name Dr Wahwah, “is completely underrated. A whole lot of people associate it with bad haircuts and the music videos that all came out, but look: it was a time when a lot of musical genres that dominate now came to the fore.”

Untethered in the Big Smoke, Adair quickly fell in behind the turntables at London squat parties. Twelve-inch wax became his currency. His collection grew from a few dozen discs in the beginning to more than a thousand by the time he returned home in 1993.

Adair’s collection has been mostly closeted since, more a souvenir from his colourful youth than any actively curated library. But he got the jones again recently and started buying records, hence Vinyl Mania, a party at Meta House for Dr Wahwah and wax lovers to spend the night together.

The culmination of a two-year buying spree, Wahwah’s newest additions are “predominantly dance” he says, but there’s lots of eclectic obscurata there too: Japanese funk, limited-edition underground disco, minimalist African house.

From Japanese DJ COS/MES comes the textural dream-pop track Like A Virgin (Dr Dunks Shredding). Manchester underground spinster Ruf Dug offers Sorta Rican, a dubby nu-disco cut from the hand-numbered, lollipop pink 10” Porn Wax 6. Afrikan Basement submits Medicine Man Drinks From the Well of Spirits, a mid-tempo house beat flavoured with double-time congas and ghostly jungle sounds.

There are hundreds more, too: all of them heavy-in-the-hand vinyl-only releases complete with full-sized album artwork and liner notes.

And Dr Wahwah isn’t the only one.

Nico Mesterharm, aka DJ Nicomatic, the well-known documentary filmmaker and patron saint of celluloid at Meta House, brought his vinyl collection from Germany to Phnom Penh two years ago. Combined with Dr Wahwah’s set, the library pushes 3,000 titles.

Meta House opened in 2007 and over the last six years it has emerged as one of the capital’s most active movie rooms and exhibition halls (it was voted Best Arts Space by readers in The Advisor’s Best Of Phnom Penh 2013 poll). Captained by Mesterharm, a journalist and renowned authority on underground German culture, the venue recently began trying less-artsy-more-nightlife type of events. He talks about bringing in overseas DJs and pushing the independent music groove. “We’re already known as the best arts space,” Mesterharm says. “Now we want to be known as Phnom Penh’s number one underground music venue.”

It’s a niche that’s wide open.

“In Australia,” says the doctor, “I would play 95 to 99 percent vinyl. When I came here I started playing CDs because nowhere had turntables, or if they did have a turntable, they usually weren’t set up to play records; they were set up to play Serato.” Serato comprises a time-encoded vinyl disk and computer software used to simulate playing digital tracks through a turntable. The package is a staple among hip-hop turntablists who use records, turntables and faders like percussive instruments (just Google ‘DJ qbert crab scratch tutorial’, you heathen).

The burgeoning Phnom Penh hip hop scene (to use the term loosely), if not so large or mature, at least cultivates roots that reach into last century. Not so these new sounds of the European underground, a newcomer in the capital’s electronica desert. But unlike those abandoned buildings in the Brixton heyday, at least the doors are open, the power is on, and no one dresses like Boy George anymore.

WHO: Dr Wahwah and DJ Nicomatic
WHAT: Vinyl Mania
WHERE: Meta House, #37 Sothearos Boulevard
WHEN: 9pm November 22
WHY: Sounds from the European underground have never been so accessible

Grass snake reunion

It’s a bird! No, it’s a plane. And on that plane is TJ Brown, beloved and much-missed leader of bluegrass band Grass Snake Union, who returned home to Colorado earlier this year. TJ is now making a brief visit to Phnom Penh for a wedding and will use the occasion to play a one-night stand with Grass Snake Union at Equinox on November 21. For those who need to come up to speed here, and may be wondering how on earth a bluegrass band could survive in Cambodia, GSU was a fixture on the live music scene in Phnom Penh for a couple of years. They were most famous for long, sweaty performances with ecstatic dancing crowds; the most unexpected covers given bluegrass treatment; ripping banjo and fiddle solos; occasional trips to rock Kampot, and a whole-of-band vocal sharing of the rock standard The Weight. All the while, the never-suppressed enthusiasm of TJ bubbled and strummed at the helm. The Advisor coaxed him into staying his guitar strings for a few bars and here’s what he had to say:

What do you miss more in Colorado: the heat or the music?
The music! Phnom Penh has such a ridiculously fun music scene, from the amazing local and international musicians covering most genres, to the live music supporters who are always up for dancing their faces off. The musical and creative energy in Phnom Penh is off the charts.

So, this is a ‘for one night only’ thing, huh?
One night only for me. You’ll have to lean on the lads to keep playing together.

In the beginning, there was no bluegrass here. What catapulted Grass Snake Union to the forefront of the live music scene?
We just wanted to have fun and play music. Bluegrass/Americana music is about community and it’s meant to be shared with the community in a live setting. The music is fun to play and a hoot to enjoy live. The genre was also new to many in Phnom Penh, including several of the band members! We had a blast on stage playing together and when the band has fun the crowd usually follows, thus fuelling the band even more… a symbiotic relationship.

What plans are there for swimming in the Kampot River this time around?
No Kampot River cruises. No boats. If there are no boats, there will be no capsized boats and ruined instruments. Not happening.

The lads have been dabbling with Hank Williams and consorting with other singers. Will you be putting them in their place, or what?
I’m just so pumped to be playing together again. They are amazing musicians and we always have a great time on stage; I doubt this show will be any different. In fact it will be even more celebratory on the eve of the wedding weekend! I also look forward to having several guests join us throughout the evening. Can’t wait to play those foot-stompin’ tunes in Phnom Penh again!

WHO: Grass Snake Union
WHAT: Bluegrass returns to Phnom Penh
WHERE: Equinox Bar, #3a Street 278
WHEN: 9pm November 21
WHY: They’ll make you dance your face off, honest!

 

A rare, road-dusted talent

It sounds a bit like an old blues song: I went from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh to Vientiane/I went from Phnom Penh to New Hope, PA. Keith Kenny is taking a break from his Big Red Suitcase tour, which crosses the US from his home base in Asbury Park, NJ to California, for a very special event: headlining a UXO (unexploded ordinance) benefit concert in Vientiane, Laos. Then he swoops through Phnom Penh to bring his high-energy acoustic sounds to Equinox. Here’s what he had to tell The Advisor.

Would ‘mindblowing’ accurately describe your invitation to play at the We Are Kind concert? Did it come completely out of the blue? 

Absolutely! I was floored to hear that event organiser Phongsavath Souliyalat (Pong) was a fan of my music and was completely blown away when he invited me to headline the concert. I know that it will really hit me when the trip begins in November.

Your live show seems deceptively simple: acoustic guitar and kicked percussion yet the range of sounds is astonishing, as is the energy. Did you jump out of the bedroom at 16 like this?  

[Laughs] I wish that I just jumped out of the bedroom ready to go, but it has been a slow evolution into the live show today. I started doing the solo show in Asbury Park around 2005 and spent years playing locally, performing new material and making tweaks to the songs. Also, obsession with guitar pedals has changed a lot of the tones and sounds that I can get from the acoustic guitar. I am still tweaking and making adjustments at every show trying to get the sound BIGGER!

Do you road test new material, or record it first and let it find its stride? 

I’ve actually done both, but most material is tested out in front of an audience before it’s recorded. Sometimes I feel like I can approach the songs better in the studio if I’ve played them on the road for a few months. I can usually get a better feel for the dynamics of the songs that way, but then again there’s always that studio magic that happens when you just record something off the cuff and it turns out to be a fan favourite.

The choice of cover versions often uncovers influences and when I checked a cover of the Led Zeppelin song Bron-Y-Aur Stomp on YouTube it put the folky/bluesy feel of your material in perspective, where you veer away from the country/Americana style. 

That tune just seemed to have all the elements for a perfect one-man-band performance and I have loved their whole catalogue since I heard it back in high school. My influences have been all over the map, from heavy metal to finger-style acoustic guitarists to singer/songwriters and old blues artists. That might be one of the reasons I’ve had a hard time finding that defining category for the sound that I’m after.

WHO:Keith Kenny
WHAT: Singer/songwriter and acoustic guitar hero
WHERE: Equinox, #3a Street 278
WHEN: 9pm November 15
WHY:Witness a road-dusted, multi-influenced talent tweaking and searching for a category

 

Old roots, new voices

What’s in a name? ‘Cambo’ provides a location. Examine for a moment the noun/verb ‘jam’: to wedge in tight; a sticky spot; sweet and spreadable, and gathering together to make music. Are these some or all of the reasons Cambojam is one of the longest-running international-style music outfits in Cambodia, particularly in their home base of Siem Reap?

In the middle of 2012, two key members returned to their homelands – a singer to the Philippines, bass player to France – allowing the French/Belgian/Japanese core to take a rest. Not much of a rest: before long a new wave of Siem Reap musicians appeared to fill the gaps and the caravan is now rolling again.

The reformed 2013 line-up for this year’s high season boasts eight players: drums and percussion; bass and guitar; keyboards, a trombone and a suitcase full of singers, plus an engineer and stage technician, carrying Asian passports from Cambodia to Japan, and across Europe from Russia to the Netherlands.

Fabien (boss; lead guitar; wine expert; made in France) explains the development of the band: “When we formed in 2007 with two guitarists and a singer, all acoustic, there were no bands to be found playing in Siem Reap. Now we play acoustic/electric/eclectic, covering jazz; folk; pop; reggae; funk, rock and hard rock.”

Along the way they’ve gigged in bars, restaurants, hotels and even a Pub Street residency where the bar’s stage was the front of a travel agency after it was closed for the day. “We started with fun as the main concept and that is still the main guideline. It’s a small town and almost everyone wanted us for a night, so we play more, we play better and then we play and play.”

Philippe (drummer/percussionist; hypnotiser; made in Belgium) remembers the earlier days of the band, when the small population in Siem Reap meant that musicians who wanted to play with others had to have an open mind: “It was the only way to play with other people! And it means everyone has brought along their own songbook. We now have a very, very large and adaptable repertoire and we can play for garden parties to hotels to Pub Street.” Fabien adds: “We have changed the song list so often that we are able to adapt ourselves, at a snap, to whatever the audience is after.”

And what of the transience of the audience? There are pros and cons, says Philippe. “Of course the high turnover means there is no pressure or need to constantly re-invent. We play night after night and every night the audience is different.”

A dramatic difference this time around is the presence one of the new singers, Thea (living apsara; made in Cambodia). “We’ve always wanted to include Cambodian musicians, but they were hard to find. We are excited to welcome Thea. She sings in English, but we now have the exciting opportunity to add Khmer songs to the set list.”

WHO: Cambojam
WHAT: Acoustic/electric/eclectic jazz; folk; pop; reggae; funk, rock and hard rock
WHERE: Shintamani Made In Cambodia market, Siem Reap
WHEN: 4pm – 9pm (exact time TBC) on the first Saturday of every month
WHY: “We started with fun as the main concept and that is still the main guideline” – Fabien

Have sax, will travel

Have sax, will travel. Will play jazz and conduct saxophone clinics and workshops across France, Italy, Portugal, China, Japan, Korea, Mongolia… Vietnam and Cambodia. And that’s just this year. Danish-born, Paris-based saxophonist Martin Jacobsen collects passport stamps and luggage stickers in the way the rest of us collect coffee shop loyalty card points. To Phnom Penh, Ho Chi Minh City and Danang this November he brings with him two Parisians of Vietnamese heritage, Duylinh Nguyen on bass and Vinh Lê on piano. He was kind enough to answer some questions.

Is this your first visit to Indochina?
Yes, it is. Apart from Singapore and Indonesia I’ve never performed in this part of Asia and I’m looking very much forward to it.

What first brought you to Asia? Travel or music or both?
I only travel as a musician, but each time I go abroad to perform I say to myself that I should come back one day and spend some time on my own, without performing. It just never happens! On the other hand, as soon as I have a day off during tours I’ll always go and visit something. A few weeks ago on a day off, I visited the beautiful Nagoya Castle in Japan.

So what’s the state of jazz like in Ulaanbaatar?
Mongolia has been independent for only 20 years and jazz is still very new. I’ve in fact been the first ever jazz educator to come to Mongolia on a regular basis for now a year. Ulaanbaatar’s first jazz club opened a few months ago, the small yearly jazz festival is getting bigger and the Minister of Culture, a woman, loves jazz and helps the scene. Mongolians are an incredibly musical people and their own traditional music scene is very strong. They respond very well to jazz – rhythm, melodies, harmonies – and it’s really exciting to see how the scene is unfolding there.

Despite the former King, Norodom Sihanouk, having been a prolific jazz composer and songwriter in the ’50s and ’60s, in Cambodia jazz today is pretty much exclusively an expatriate scene, both for players and audience. Do you find that in, say, Mongolia or Korea?

Because of big social differences in Mongolia, the jazz audience is often made up of more well-off Mongolians or foreigners living there, but with the new jazz club (run by Mongolia’s only jazz pianist) it’s now possible for everyone to come and listen to jazz. It’s great to have some of your young students sitting in the audience. Before, when we played at some of Ulaanbaatar’s upscale venues, they couldn’t afford to come. That’s wrong: jazz should be for everyone. The jazz audience in South Korea is almost exclusively Korean – and even mainly young people. There are numerous jazz clubs in Seoul – the oldest is from 1976 – and the jazz scene there is very rich and exiting and the best in Asia after Japan.

The reviews I’ve seen all talk about your Coltrane influence, but playing jazz tenor that would be hard to avoid. Do you feel you have Trane on your shoulder?
That’s a good question. It’s true that I’ve been very much influenced by the early (mid-1950s) John Coltrane. I’m a self-taught musician and mostly studied saxophone from listening to my records. I also listened a lot to Dexter Gordon, who lived 12 years in Copenhagen and his spirit was sort of hovering over the jazz scene there, even in the late 1980s when I started playing the saxophone: Sonny Rollins, Joe Henderson, Hank Mobley to name but a few. It’s important to be aware of your influences and find new inspirations. These last few years, I’ve been listening a lot to contemporary saxophonists like Jerry Bergonzi, Michael Brecker, Chris Potter. Miles Davis once said that you have to try to imitate other players, hoping that you can’t do it. He tried to imitate Terry Clark, but couldn’t – and instead ended up becoming Miles Davis.

WHO: Martin Jacobsen Trio
WHAT: Jazz, man
WHERE: Doors, Street 84 & 47 (Nov 7) and Sofitel, Sothearos Blvd (Nov 12)
WHEN: November 7 (Doors) & 12 (Sofitel)
WHY: There ain’t nothin’ like a Dane

 

 

Channelling emotions through music

“The purest form of recognition is a stranger relating to me just through my words and melody,” says English self-taught pianist/guitarist/singer/songwriter and Earl Grey addict Charlie Corrie. Pointing at his mug full of white wine (“All my wine glasses are broken”), the 29-year-old says: “My music is honest and pure. This is the first drop of alcohol I have had in three months. Under the influence, you will write about feelings that are not real.”

Inspired by the classical music his adopted parents played during dinner parties, Charlie’s music career kicked off at the age of four. “I taught myself to play the piano alongside the classical melodies of composers like Chopin, Brahms, Tchaikovsky.” At the age of 10, he picked up and played his neighbour’s guitar for the first time. From there, he taught himself by ear. “I started writing music when I was 16. After years of playing in different bands and co-writing with other artists, my recent work is totally my own, from the beginning to the end.”

While his PR photos may have something of the ‘boy band’ about them (“Those pictures were taken years ago, when I was at a ‘pop’ phase in my career”), his new discography leans towards indie artists Ed Sheeran, Bon Iver and Ben Howard. “I take certain styles from these artists and make it my own. I don’t think anyone can truly be original; everything has to come from somewhere, but my voice makes the difference. That’s really my own sound.”

The results can be heard on his debut EP, due out by the end of this year. “In reality I am a closed book, but I express my feelings and thoughts through music. Writing music is therapeutic: it’s my way of channeling my emotions.” Predictably, his lyrics fixate on relationships. “I ruin relationships and they ruin me. I believe this is caused by my upbringing as an adopted child. I have no idea where I came from. In the first years of my life I lived in foster homes. Most people ran as fast into my life as they ran out of it, so I don’t let people in that easily, which some might confuse as arrogance.”

As an aside, Charlie does all of his composing in his kitchen “because of the acoustics and the tea pot being in reach”. Tea? That’s not rock ‘n’ roll! “Back in London I did the whole rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle: drugs, alcohol; I was even homeless for a while. After that roaring period, I really needed to get out of there. Phnom Penh gives me space to breathe and collect my thoughts.”

WHO: Charlie Corrie
WHAT: Pianist/guitarist/singer/songwriter and Earl Grey addict
WHERE: Doors, Street 84 & 47
WHEN: 9:30pm October 31
WHY: “My music is honest and pure” – Charlie Corrie

 

Ancient spirits of rock

Photo: Bophana Center
Photo: Anders Jiras

Those of us who’ve ever boarded a long-distance Cambodian bus probably think we know more about modern Khmer music than we deserve. But we’d be wrong. Because, although we tend to associate ‘heritage’ with dusty old scholars and hooky Angkor Wat souvenirs, there’s more to it than that. This month there’s a chance to discover Cambodia’s fragile cultural legacies, both ancient and modern – and the people saving them for the future.

Bringing the vinyl vibe of ’60s Cambodia back to life, for example, are The Underdogs, six young Khmers who met at the Music Arts School in 2012. Inspired by “the unforgettable sound of the golden age and also Dengue Fever and the Cambodian Space Project”, they’ve performed their mop-top tunes all over town. “It’s going to be an awesome event,” says frontman Samean ‘Sammie’ Ouk. “The Underdogs will rock you with the best Khmer old school songs and make you feel like you are dancing in the past!”

Contrast The Underdogs to warm-up act Master Hong Sun’s Ensemble. The elderly musicians from Kampong Speu beat accelerating rhythms, scratching out melodies on traditional stringed instruments. They are entreating the Areak, spirits who in days of yore helped the shaman (mehmut) when villagers fell sick. As part of the ritual-heavy performance the Areak are offered food and liquor too, not unlike a typical night out in Phnom Penh.

It’s quite a privilege to hear Areak music, notes Marion Gommard from Cambodian Living Arts. Barely influenced by the outside world, art forms like this are unique to Cambodia and there’s only a handful of practitioners still living.

It’s no secret that Cambodia’s heritage is particularly delicate. A generation of artists was decimated during the Khmer Rouge era. Vinyl recordings and acetate film rapidly deteriorate in these tropical climes, and in the Internet age are readily forgotten too. “Younger people ought to appreciate all these art forms and ensure they are not lost – and in turn become creators inspired by the past,” says Jamie Lee, who helps digitise priceless Khmer heritage at Unesco.

In 2005, the UN launched a World Day for Audiovisual Heritage and guardians of culture at the Bophana Centre, Cambodian Living Arts and Unesco have joined forces to organise this year’s event in Phnom Penh. Themed Musical and Performing Arts in Cambodia: Reviving Artistic Heritage, the aim is to breathe ‘a second life’ into everything from classical dance to jukebox favourites.

The event celebrates the visual as well as the audio. Since 2008, Suppya Nut and the Khmer Dance Project have been painstakingly recording reams of interviews with the dwindling population of surviving ‘masters’, from Khmer Royal Ballet directors to costume designers.

Revealed during New York’s Season Of Cambodia festival earlier this year, it’ll be the first time Nut’s work has been seen in this country and will be accompanied by a live dance performance. Guests at the free-entry event will get a CD of Khmer rock tracks remastered from the original vinyl. Look out too for the ’60s rock-styled couples trained to twist, mash and pony by former cinema starlet Dy Saveth (Miss Cambodia 1963). “It doesn’t need to be old to be heritage,” remarks Bophana Centre administrator Stanislas Touzet. Eat that, coach tour snobs.

WHO: Culture vultures to retro rockers
WHAT: Cambodian music and dance spanning the centuries
WHERE: Bophana Centre, #64 Street 200
WHEN: 4pm October 25
WHY:  It doesn’t need to be old to be heritage

(PHOTO: Cambodian Living Arts / Kampuchea Party Republic)

Let the dogs out!

It finally happened. I walked into a bar where the audience was more mixed than the band: a bunch of young Cambodians playing tight, punchy, energetic rock ‘n’ roll to a lively dance floor full of Khmers and expats. The band was The Underdogs, who all met at Music Arts School, a non-profit grassroots institution on Street 370.

“We started about a year ago, trying a mix of different styles: some Khmer songs, some English songs,” explains leader and singer Sammie. “Then we decided we should specialise in bringing back the old songs from the 1960s. Everyone knows Chnam Aun Dop Pram Moi (‘I’m 16’) and Svar Rom (‘Monkey Dance’), but there are many more songs that we play that are less well known. We want to introduce the young people to more obscure songs that are just as good.”

And youth is key here: the oldest in the band are 25; the keyboard player just turned 18. One of the singers is still in high school. So how do they know the old music of the sixties? “We search in YouTube, listen to old cassettes, and we talk to the old people who remember the times.”

Sammie grows animated trying to expres his excitement about The Underdogs’ recent success, playing at Equinox, Doors, Sharky, The Village and Slur. “I never thought I would see a Khmer band playing Khmer music in Western bars.”

The band members describe their mission as reconnecting their peers with the music of their heritage. “The new songs copy too much; they sound just like K-Pop. We want to make a real Cambodian sound.” What about Dengue Fever and the Cambodian Space Project, mainly foreigners playing the old music with Khmer singers? “Oh, we really like them,” says Sammie, blushing. “They are my heroes. They play with more of a Western style.”

The Underdogs have a more traditional wedding-band form, with rotation singers: two girls and a boy. “This way we can give the singers a rest; each time they can come on fresh,” says Sammie. Also, it means a wider range of songs. The songs of Ros Sereysothea and Pen Ron are now widely known, but the band can also play tunes by the Elvis/Dylan/Sinatra of Cambodia, Sinn Sisamouth, as well as the wilder singers such as Yol Auralong, famous for Jih Cyclo and also responsible for the drunken raving blues of Syrah Syrah and the funky soul of Voa Saroun.

So where do The Underdogs see themselves heading? “We are writing some songs; they are in a modern rock style, but we want to try to make them into a more old style. And also we would like to have some costumes, so that we look more like a band from the sixties.” Local tailors, take note.

They go on for another set, before closing with a series of encores: a dead-ringer for a Blondie album track; Knyom Mon Sok Jet Te (‘I’m Unsatisfied’), the Khmer version of Woolly Bully and the epic closer Chol Chnam Thmei (‘Happy New Year’).

Long may the dogs run free!

WHO: The Underdogs
WHAT: Energetic Golden Era rock ‘n’ roll
WHERE: Equinox, Street 278
WHEN: 9pm October 18
WHY: Look to the youth to drive the future

 

Twisted talking heads

Imagine a legendary missing bootleg of Blondie, or perhaps The Cars, being brought into the studio on a whim by David Bowie in his Scary Monsters period, with Donna Summer’s main man Giorgio Moroder producing, that is then passed to Daft Punk to remix. From time to time the Human League put in their two cents’ worth, and Nick Cave whispered some pointers. It’s like grunge never happened. Your imagination might get you close to Poni Hoax, a Parisian band fronted by a Franco-Cambodian singer, visiting Phnom Penh this week.

Eschewing a bass player in the presence of dual keyboards, they pump out a dark energetic sound hooky enough to remind you of the best early ’80s pop, augmented by the charismatic English language vocals of Nicolas Ker; a line-up reminiscent of The Doors, coincidentally one of the few acts that the whole band listens to.

“All the guys listen to different music styles, [the Doors are] the only band on which we all agree,” explains guitarist Nicolas Villebrin. “Laurent Bardainne, the composer, comes from Coltrane and Albert Ayler and also loves a lot of very commercial French music; the guitar player listens to minimal techno; the drummer loves hip hop and baroque. I come from the Velvet Underground, Bowie and the Stooges, so we sound like a twisted kind of Talking Heads… right there at the cross-over.”

Keyboard players Bardainne and Arnaud Roulin, guitarist Villebrin and drummer Vincent Taeger all met while studying at the Conservatoire Nationale de Musique in Paris. Differing sources recount the standard myths of meeting singer and lyricist Nicolas either in a bar or via a classified ad. The band and their sound sit naturally in the internet age, where underground and mainstream are no longer useful terms.

The lyrical content is suggested by taglines such as ‘This band was found in a trailer park, wandering aimlessly in a zombie-like trance, wearing its mother’s dress’; by song titles like Antibodies, Budapest, Hypercommunication, Down on Serpent Street and Images of Sigrid. The new album, their third, is titled A State Of War.

Nicolas was born in Phnom Penh in 1970 to a Cambodian woman and a Frenchman, and they were evacuated from the French Embassy compound after the fall of the city in 1975. The trauma continues: asked if he has heard anything of the Cambodian rock ‘n’ roll revival, he says: “Laurent Bardainne is really interested in these records. As for myself, I can’t get myself to listen to the Khmer language, which I forgot in one night in 1975.” Laurent discovered the music while exploring Nicolas’ background and has become enchanted by Cambodian culture.

It’s just a show business trip, a one-night visit to the country, without photo opportunities at Angkor Thom or on the Mekong, and Nicolas shadow boxes with the drama of his first return in 38 years. But then there’s a twinkle: “I think that it won’t be our last gig in Cambodia.” Tickets are on sale now (adults $8, students and under-18s $4) at the media library of the Institut français, #218 Street 184.

WHO:Poni Hoax
WHAT: Dark hooky French pop in English
WHERE: NRG89fm, #131B Street 271 (next to Total)
WHEN: 7pm October 10
WHY: This band was found in a trailer-park, wandering aimlessly in a zombie-like trance, wearing its mother’s dress