Category: Night & Day

With love from Vietnam

SAT 21 | Hailing all the way from Ho Chi Minh City, hip hop/funk group The Love Below bring their lyrically loaded, soulful sound to Phnom Penh. The group manages to blend hip hop, soul and funk with jazz and reggae, creating a sound that is mellow rather than chaotic. Chillers will find themselves pleasantly sated with their smooth, original melodies and rich vocals, though their selection of up-tempo beats will no doubt engage those dance junkies who lurk among us.

WHO: The Love Below
WHAT: Live soul & hip hop
WHERE: Doors Tapas & Music, #18 St. 84 & 47
WHEN: 9pm February 21
WHY: You can’t have too much soul

Shakin’ and stirrin’

FRI 14 | Haven’t heard of The Creem yet? Time to get educated. Phnom Penh’s freshest event artisans will be hosting their very first shindig, Spice at Bouchon Wine Bar this Friday. Treat your ears to smooth beats from the newly formed DJ duo Cambo Disco Club while sipping on martinis so exotic they’d probably give Bond a heart attack (think tea, chili and kampot pepper infused). This certainly won’t be the last you’ll be seeing of The Creem, but that’s no reason not to make this night of theirs the first of many.

WHO: Cambo Disco Club
WHAT: DJs & Martinis
WHERE: Bouchon Wine Bar, #3 St. 246
WHEN: 8pm February 13
WHY: Music and martinis. Double win.

My trash, your treasure

SUN 8 | Sundays are theoretically the perfect day for shopping. Realistically speaking, those of us who’ve thoroughly enjoyed our night before aren’t stepping foot inside a crowded, overly lit and somehow intimidating shopping mall.  The crew at Show Box probably know this feeling better than any of us, and henceforth have provided the goods with their inaugural Flea Market this Sunday. Browse a wide range of stalls selling very reasonably priced, locally-made and pre-loved items, including clothes, arts, crafts, jewelry, DVDs, skin products, food, teas and way more. Get amongst it and support ya locals!

WHO: Buyers and sellers
WHAT: Flea market
WHERE: Show Box, #11 St. 330
WHEN: 2pm Sunday 8
WHY: One guy’s trash might be your treasure

Dancing in the street

FRI 13 | 2014 saw the first ever Sok San Festival transform Sok San Road in Siem Reap from your average thoroughfare to a vibrant, all-inclusive cultural and creative epicentre. This year, the festival will run over three days and nights and will feature a range of live musical performances by Cambodian-based musicians (and likely some impromptu shows by talented participants), interactive wall painting, DJ workshops with DJs Sakura Boom, Mute Speaker and David Scott, skating demos and some pretty amazing costumes. Yes, it’s a long trip up, but once you’re covered in face paint and dancing with randoms, you’ll thank yourself for making the effort.

WHO: Artists and musicians of Cambodia
WHAT: Street festival
WHERE: Sok San Road, Siem Reap
WHEN: Fri 13-Sun 15
WHY: When was the last time you went to a street festival?

PhotoPhnomPenh 2015

SAT 31 | Annual urban photography festival PhotoPhnomPenh is back. This year around 20 artists, Cambodian and international, will present their works in more than 10 venues across town. Opening on January 31 at the French Institute, PPP 2015 will once again feature the famous tuk-tuk tour, which will take visitors from one venue to the next. The opening week will also give exhibition-goers the opportunity to meet artists and fellow photography nerds through ongoing meetings, workshops and screening events. Transport is sorted, it’s kind of going to be hard not to catch it somewhere around town, and this year it runs right through until February 28. We dare you to come up with a legit excuse for missing out.

WHO: Cambodian and international photographers
WHAT: Photography showcase
WHERE: The French Institute,
#218 Street 184
WHEN: 2:30pm January 31
WHY: Remember last year’s PPP?
That’s why.

PHOTO: Hang on © Neak Sophal, PhotoPhnomPenh 2015

City folk

WED 28 | The City is a group art exhibit curated by Texas artist and musician Conrad Keely. It includes works by Peter Klashorst, David Holliday, Kosal Kiev, Bernadette Vincent and Keely, and the list continues to grow. The show was prompted by Keely’s reflections on the change forced upon inhabitants of the planet’s urban centres. The show explores the theme of urban living and its complexities – beautiful and ugly, real and imagined. As more of the global population moves into urban centres, more and more people are leaving behind rural communities and generations of traditional family life, Keely says. This change often affects people in ways they never fully contemplate: a struggle for mental solitude in crowded spaces, the daily challenges of traffic, crime, population growth, pollution. In The City several Phnom Penh-based artists take on the challenge of illustrating what this urban landscape means to them. They tell the story of how our cities shape us, not just creatively, but by indelibly carving its presence upon our collective visual language.

WHO: Phnom Penh art renegades
WHAT: Art!
WHERE: Show Box, #11 Street 330
WHEN: 7pm January 28
WHY: Rarely will you find so many big art names collected under a single rubric

DJ Cut Killer

SAT 24 | One of rapper 50 Cent’s Shadyville turntablists, Cut Killer – possibly the most emblematic DJ in French hip hop – is back on Cambodian terra firma. More than 20 years have passed since this Morocco-born Paris-raised dude first took to the decks, inspired during the 1980s by Deenasty, Jazzy Jeff and Cash Money. Since then he’s produced myriad mix tapes, launched his own record label and clothing line, scooped a platinum award for his Cut Killer Show series, and appeared in two films – Hang The DJ, and 9: Un Chiffre, Un Homme – as himself. And yet he remains humble, telling Tha Global Cipha: “a lot of people know about me because the Americans say I’m the Funkmaster Flex of France. I say okay, if you want, but I’m just a DJ. That’s it. It’s my work.” And here’s how he remembers the moment he realised he wanted to become “just” a DJ; the moment he first saw Cash Money perform in the flesh: “At that moment, I knew I wanted to be a DJ. When I saw him, I said, ‘No, no, no! That’s impossible!’ See, at that time, Paid In Full was at the top of the charts. And it had that ‘Fresh’ sample in it. But, his record went like, ‘This stuff is really fresh… fresh… fresh… fresh… fresh!’ And then the beat dropped. Ohhhh! Everybody was goin’ crazy. It was like, ‘Awwwwhhh!!!’ That was our breakbeat at that time. So, I was like, ‘Okay, okay, I wanna be a DJ. I don’t really got no other hobbies anyway’.”

WHO: DJ Cut Killer
WHAT: French rap and hip-hop legend
WHERE: Pontoon, #80 St. 172
WHEN: 11pm January 24
WHY: His stuff is really fresh… fresh… fresh

Ti Rat & Rouge Reggae

FRI 16 | Reunion Island reggae ambassadors Ti Rat & Rouge Reggae bring their unique blend of island roots-rock and Jah melodies to Phnom Penh as part of the band’s Asian tour. Ti Rat mixes Creole, French and Jamaican ghetto influences. Local reggae act Wat A Gwaan opens.

WHO: Ti Rat & Rouge Reggae
WHAT: Like de name, says, mon: reggae
WHERE: Slur Bar, #28 Street 172
WHEN: January 16, 9pm
WHY: French reggae of the highest order

Spinning down south

SAT 17 | The spinsters at Phnom Penh Underground are invading Kampot this weekend with a trio of UK deck bosses: DJ Sequence, Phatt Controller and Mute Speaker. A fixture on the local scene, DJ Sequence, from London, is the creative fuel behind successful drum-and-bass events such as bass:session, Berlin Tropical and TechPenh. Phatt Controller works up-tempo break beats and energetic, body-shaking rhythms. Mute Speaker is known for mixing native Cambodian sounds with old-school hip-hop. He represents one of several in the wave of digital creativity currently reverberating across the capital’s burgeoning underground DJ scene.

WHO: DJ Sequence and the Phnom Penh Underground
WHAT: Phnom Penh Underground comes to Naga House
WHERE: Naga House, Kampot
WHEN: January 17, 9pm
WHY: Escape to Kampot; you need no excuse