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As erections go, it’s a hard one to miss – if you’ll pardon the appalling pun. Longer than a human forearm and twice the girth, this monstrous appendage looms from between two wrinkled thighs like an anaconda with advanced rigor mortis. Could this be animal speak for ‘happy’? “That’s getting into anthropomorphism but he’s got his donger out, so that’s a good thing…” Dr Wayne McCallum grins as Kiri positions himself over a mound of sand, splays all four legs and then squashes it flat, ears flapping. “That elephant’s got two trunks!” McCallum roars with laughter. “Yeah, he’s happy.”

It was not always so. Eighteen months ago, an emaciated sack of grey skin and bones appeared on the front page of a local newspaper beneath the headline ‘The zoo of horrors’. Teuk Chhou Zoo, just outside Kampot, was then the private menagerie of one Nhim Vanda, a four-star general and vice president of the National Committee for Disaster Management. He had built the zoo with Hun Sen’s blessing in 1999, along with another at Prey Veng. A government website described it as ‘a wonderful place to spend a fun-filled afternoon with your family’.

The reality was rather less wonderful. Cramped, filthy cages; untreated injuries; no clean water; scant evidence of food: the list of transgressions was long. Orang-utans starved of any shelter hung listlessly from the bars of a tiny cage. Eagles nursed damaged wings in enclosures too small for them to stretch. “It is so hard for me to find food and clean water to provide to the animals because in one day I get money from tourists totalling about 20,000 riel (US$5) to 100,000 riel, but I pay much more than that for food,” His Excellency said at the time. “[Wildlife NGOs] should be proud of me and encourage me because I like my animals more than my own son.” The Cambodian authorities chose to say nothing at all.

Today, that same elephant – once on the cusp of starvation – is all but unrecognisable. Seila, the female who shares Kiri’s newly expanded enclosure, is bouncing up and down on a bright blue bin. The plastic crumples like paper beneath her feet. Kiri flaps her ears, moves on to the next bin, and repeats the process. You’d be hard-pressed to describe her as mammoth, but her frame is infinitely less skeletal than in the now-infamous photo from March last year.

“The good news is we’ve stabilised a bad zoo,” says McCallum, part of the team responsible for the extreme makeover now unfolding within the walls of Teuk Chhou. “The elephants are the perfect symbol of the transition, given how emaciated they were. The fact is a lot of the animals were dying. We had a gibbon who looked like he’d come from a death camp.”

Stabilisation first arrived in the form of Rory and Melita Hunter, the Australian husband-and-wife team who transformed Song Saa into Cambodia’s first luxury island resort. Working closely with the zoo’s owner, the pair enlisted Wildlife Alliance director Nick Marx, who brings with him more than 30 years’ experience in animal welfare. Next came the Elephant Asia Rescue and Survival foundation’s Louise Rogerson, who – with the help of two Hong Kong donors – has completely transformed the “ellie enclosure”.

“The enclosure took three months; it’s a huge change,” she says in a soft Mancunian accent. “Their pool was smelly and dirty; there were frogs and filth and rubbish in it. We cleaned all that out and now they play in it every day. Kiri’s favourite toy is the tyre: he throws it around everywhere. They’re so much happier. The main worry with these animals in captivity is food: they weren’t getting enough. They were getting about two wheelbarrows of grass a day, but they need up to 10% of their bodyweight, which is about 200kg a day. They’re still small for their age because of malnutrition.” Little is known of the elephants’ history, as with most of the animals here, she notes (many are believed to have been given to the original owner as gifts).

Mankind has been keeping wild beasts in captivity for thousands of years, often with tragic results. During the dedication of Ancient Rome’s Colosseum by Emperor Titus, according to historian WEH Lecky, as many as 5,000 animals perished in a single day. People have, on occasion, fared little better: in 1906, the Bronx Zoo in New York displayed Congolese pygmy Ota Benga in a cage with chimpanzees and then an orang-utan by way of demonstrating the ‘missing link’. But with the arrival of the 20^th century came the ‘modern zoo’. Far from the living museums of their ‘arks in parks’ forebears, they exist not only to document how wildlife and habitats are declining, but to find ways to halt that decline.

Footprints is Song Saa’s new privately funded philanthropic arm. Directed by McCallum, an affable nature-loving New Zealander who moved here in 2003, its aim is to transform ‘the zoo of horrors’ into a state-of-the-art wildlife and environmental education centre via a five-year, $250,000 master plan. “We want it to be a journey, rather than just a menagerie. It’s both a journey into the zoo and a journey into its transformation into a wildlife education park. The way you interact with the exhibits will be part of the educational process.”

‘Interacting with the exhibits’, on one of Teuk Chhou’s Paws and Claws Wildlife Encounters, means anything from shovelling elephant poo to bottle-feeding a full-grown tiger, which is about as easy as it sounds. Following the keeper’s instructions to the letter, I rest the tip of a giant syringe filled with lactose-free milk on one of the bars of a tigress’ enclosure. The gently growling big cat seizes it with her incisors and neatly nips it off, nearly swallowing the syringe in the process. Milk for the male, Meanchey, gets inadvertently squirted straight up his nostrils.

Allowing curious folk to get up close and personal with some of Teuk Chhou’s 134 animals, which span 43 species, is one way Footprints hopes to cover the $8,000 monthly food bill. For $25, you can spend half a day getting to know some of Teuk Chhou’s most colourful characters. For $45, you can experience a full day in the life of a zoopkeeper by bathing elephants, ‘blissing out’ a colourful hornbill; making toys for the animals; coming face to face with big cats, preparing food and the aforementioned shovelling of elephant poo, among many other just-as-aromatic strains. Proceeds are ploughed straight back into feeding the animals and building better enclosures.

“What we’re trying to do is look at it as an overall experience, not just for the visitors, but also for the animals,” says Rory Hunter, the Sydney-born property developer who, along with his wife Melita, owns Song Saa. “We’re doing it on a habitat basis. There’ll be a journey through tree-lined forest, where you have an elevated view over Kampot; then the park will be divided into wetland, jungle, and forest habitats. The landscape will be relevant not only to the animals in here, but also to the local wildlife. At least 50% of our animals are native to Cambodia – not just the big well-known species, but also lesser-known species, like civets, which people don’t realise are native. In 20 years’ time, they probably won’t exist in the wild.”

WHO: Wild things
WHAT: The new Teuk Chhou Zoo
WHERE: Thmei district, Kampot province
WHEN: Now
WHY: Help transform ‘the zoo of horrors’ into a park of hope

 

Amanda Bloom fuses the beauty of musical antiquity with the raw power of modern rock

Sir Isaac Asimov, Albert Einstein and Voltaire rank among history’s most notable freethinkers – progressive, intelligent souls who believe opinions should be formed not on the basis of tradition or dogma, but logic and reason. Among the most venerated wisdom that has poured forth from such lips over the centuries are the words of someone who is neither science fiction author, nor Enlightenment philosopher, nor theoretical physicist.

You could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. Amanda Bloom – a willowy, porcelain-skinned wisp with a penchant for vintage clothing – is an elegant, Australian singer and composer who began studying piano at the age of three, wrote her first sonata aged six, and debuted at the Sydney Opera House at just 17. On her first album, The History of Things to Come, a song by the name of Rosetta – so called in honour of the Rosetta Stone, which famously unlocked the secrets of Ancient Egypt – contains the line: ‘An idea does not gain truth as it gains followers.’ When the album was released in 2010, the lyrics were immediately seized upon by freethinkers the world over. They’ve since been immortalised on everything from websites and radio shows to t-shirts and at least one tattoo.

These ten words lie at the core of what Bloom, deeply touched by baroque and world music, describes on the album liner notes as “An epic and astounding fusion of fantasy, circus, classical, and piano-driven alternative rock.” Strings, oboes, harpsichords, cellos and timpanis layer in orchestral splendour amid off-beat rhythms, stunning harmonies, and still more stirring words. “Imagine an 18^th century tea party with Tori Amos, Cirque du Soleil, Yann Tiersen and Muse” is how she defines her own otherwise almost indefinable style.

The Advisor caught Bloom – whose first mission in Cambodia was to write a female empowerment anthem for German development agency GIZ, and who’s now recording her second album at former head of Sony International Chris Craker’s Karma Sound Studios – to talk Greek gods, rationalism, and facing the void.

How does it feel to see your own lyrics become a cult t-shirt?

The song Magdalene started becoming very popular online throughout these atheistic, freethinking communities across the States – people who were very anti-Bush. This was 2007. Online, I became known as this pin-up hero for rationalism. ‘Oh, she’s the ultimate blah, blah, blah.’ A line from Rosetta – ‘An idea does not gain truth as it gains followers’ – started spreading around the net as one of the best freethinking quotes of all time. Suddenly I’m, like, up there with Einstein. It was so cool. I’d always said the best thing would be to be quoted, so this was one of my great dreams. All these companies were making t-shirts of it. Meanwhile, in reality, I’m just shopping on eBay, getting pissed, really unhappy. Of course, online means nothing.

That first album was a tough one. 

I became obsessed. I had this sound in my head: it was music I wanted to hear but couldn’t find anywhere, so I thought: ‘Why not write it?’ I became fascinated by the idea of locking myself away from the world, just to see what there is when I try to strip everything away – just being in a bare room with my piano; trying to get back to the bare bones of music composition. I was writing for other pop groups when I was 20, 21 and at the time I thought ‘I’m not pretty enough to be the artist myself.’ I was massively introspective and obsessed with thinking. You know when you’re young, you’re so affected by things and I was so angered by a lot of other girls in my age group; they seemed so vacuous. I kept a diary and was reading a lot of philosophy; studying this, studying that. I thought: ‘Why is the music that’s out there so empty?’ I don’t know why I sound so serious, because I’m not that serious any more. That’s the funny thing: in my youth, the youth of others just annoyed me. Especially being a young girl in the music industry, there was this push towards pop and singing about crap; nothing. Rosetta is a song that was inspired by the Rosetta Stone. It’s a metaphor for truth and was based on the idea of what the world would be like if we could only tell the truth, especially the media. Then Magdalene is a song about religious hypocrisy and extremism in all different forms. That album, the ideas were very ambitious and huge. At the time, that’s where my mindset was at.

I love this album, but I’m so happy it’s in my past because it was the result of so many – I don’t know if you should be writing this; I’m not sure I want anyone to know this stuff, it’s very intimate. It’s kind of the Oscar Wilde Picture of Dorian Gray thing: creating something of incredible beauty, but then the reality is actually crumbling. By the time I’d finished it, I was broken inside because I’d given my everything to that album. Years and years of this idea of perfection and the idea of this music, and then I’d lost everything; fallen away from my friends, my family, my relationship at the time. I’d sacrificed so much for my music. By the time I’d finished, I realised that’s not the right way to be living – it’s not healthy. I’d rather be a good person than a great artist. I needed to get that balance again.

Then I went to the Middle East and finished some vocals there. That was at a time I realised I was living for my art, not living for myself, but I’ve always believed great art is the result of great living: you should never give up living well. It’s like Salvador Dali: he was brilliant, obviously, but you read his personal diaries and he’s such a narcissist; so self-obsessed. You think: ‘Fuck your art. I don’t care about your art any more. You’ve ruined it.’

Never read anything about your favourite artists. You’ll never think of them the same way again.

[Laughs] On that note, I’ll leave you. So, you love my album, hey? Awesome! See you later – I’m outta here… No? OK. Coming here was like a complete rebirth. It’s been this incredible blank canvas on which I can start painting my second album. The people here are incredible; so inspiring. They’ve all got such an incredible story; they have so much courage and they’re so brave. And I’ve had such great opportunities here. In Australia, there was talk of distributing the first album and playing live, but I really just wrote this album for myself, as a personal challenge.

The title track, The History of Things to Come, is about the fact that we all have responsibility for the things to come; this is history that we’re making now on a personal level. It’s a journey that comes from the idea that to become a full person, we must first break in half and then decide which halves you want to put together. You must break into a thousand pieces and then put those pieces back together yourself, from a position of knowledge and confidence in your own identity. What you’re born into – the school you go to, the people you know – a lot of that is chosen for you. It’s important as an adult to completely break apart and then put yourself back together again; to question everything and get back to absolutely nothing at all, and then to face that void, because we all fear the void so much and worry that we won’t be able to handle having nothing, or being nothing for a while. But that’s a beautiful place to be: nothing. From that, you can hand select what you want of yourself. So that song was about breaking apart and then rebuilding yourself. The irony is that through writing it, I did it – I completely broke apart. That song almost destroyed me and it became a meta-documentation of the journey it took to complete it. It was very intense. The song took three years to write. I programmed every note on the piano and developed RSI in my right hand.

Has recording the second album been a more positive experience? 

So positive, I can’t even begin to convey to you. All these songs, I wrote them with no judgement of myself. I just let them exist, let them breathe. I wasn’t trying to make them the best thing ever; I was just trying to be honest, which was so freeing because if you’re honest, there’s no right or wrong. As an artist, you always feel that your first instinct isn’t good enough; surely, you can keep perfecting it. But then it becomes inauthentic. What’s beautiful is the spontaneity of art: it’s more of an accurate insight into you. Also, this time, it would be nice for it to be successful, but I know now what the first album did to me psychologically. You know what? I just want to enjoy the process and do it for the sake of the music. I hope that comes across in how it sounds.

Tell us about the essence of this new album.

The working title is Atlas, after the god who was expelled from Greece and, the story has it, carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. But while that was incredibly painful and he suffered for it, he was also able to have an insight into the natural laws and truths of the universe, and he was able to learn about the world that way.

The songs were written in different parts of the world: there’s a song I wrote in Paris, called Marionette, about a wooden doll controlled by everyone else. There’s a song called Pictures of Indochine, which I wrote about moving from Sydney to Cambodia. Whenever I live in a developing country, it’s like I absorb the general attitude of the nation. I feel as though I’m developing as well. There’s a song called Eyes of Galena, which is about India: rebirth, starting again, having the power at any time of your life to wipe clean your own past and give yourself permission to start again. Give yourself permission to reform your own idea of yourself, and not believe in your past insecurities.

And Schumann Etudes, which is a nine-minute journey a friend described as ‘very Tim Burton’, I was even working on that on my laptop while we were in the car on our way to the studio. It’s a song about being creatively blocked, and meeting someone – this incredible gay guy Ezra Axelrod, a performer, in London – it’s about the walks we used to take together and him hearing me play a Schumann etude, which completely opened me up again. He used to say to me: ‘Just tell the truth. Just write songs as if you’re telling a friend a story.’ And so I did: I wrote the song in that style, so it’s quite a meta-song. There are more world aspects to this album, but it’ll be a lot less layered: a bit more naked, raw. The song from India will have the sitar on it; in Pictures of Indochine, I really want to use the Khmer xylophone, and Marionette has accordion.

Has being in Cambodia changed you?

I came here without the intention of writing music. I’ve always known deep down that the best things in life happen without you trying to make them happen: best moments, best friendships, best everything. Always. Don’t chase shadows. I came here and started teaching at a kindergarten, and I think it was being around kids and getting back to basics – in Sydney I was quite down – I’ve got back to living in the moment and really loving every second of the day. It was here that I realised the last album was written in the hope it would fulfil me, whereas this next album is a result of being fulfilled. I’ve already arrived and the songs are catching up with me. I’ve taken the pressure off. With the first, I was so hard on myself; it was an experiment in my own potential. Now I’m looking up and looking ahead and it’s working. It’s back to this philosophy of choosing what you want in your life, in a way. I don’t know. Now I’m drunk. Turn that thing off!

Already? Cheap date.

I know. I’m such a lightweight. Let’s talk about vintage clothes…

If you insist. Where did the love of vintage come from?

Vintage is my procrastination. The irony is that now I’m selling vintage clothes professionally, I procrastinate by doing my music. ‘Maybe I’ll just write a new song instead of tagging these items.’ I’ve even tried to trick myself and it does work! But you know what’s good now? I wear the vintage while playing the gig, so it’s perfect. It’s the same obsession with music: timelessness. It’s an obsession with classical music, with renaissance, with baroque. It’s this looking back to look forward thing. But also, so much of the newly designed stuff out there is junk. The clothes don’t work with the body, they work against it. Vintage is so romantic – and it’s often a lot cheaper.

So, if you had a time machine…  

[Laughs] I’d go back to before this wine and I wouldn’t order it!

WHO: Amanda Bloom
WHAT: An epic and astounding fusion of fantasy, circus, classical, and piano-driven alternative rock
WHERE: Meta House, #37 Sothearos Blvd.
WHEN: 8pm October 11
WHY: See WHAT

 

The urgent chirruping of Hungarian birds, a thunderstorm rumbling in the distance. A quaint English accent giving a lesson in making polite conversation at the tobacconist’s. Honk! Honk! The clown-like call of hyla gratiosa, better known as the barking tree frog. These are just a few of the more than 3.5 million sounds that have been captured, sorted and stored during the past 100 years or so by the staff of the British Library.

The mechanical, electrical and now digital inscription and recreation of sound waves has kept sound engineers occupied since the Banu­ Mus­a brothers invented the world’s first mechanical musical instrument in the 9th century. By 1857, Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville had invented the phonautograph, the first device that could record sound waves as they passed through the air (it couldn’t, however, play them back).

Today, sound artists such as British musician Simon Whetham lasso these air-borne pressure oscillations – from Icelandic sagas to the drone of urban shopping malls – and corral them into intricate, ethereal soundscapes destined for record labels with names like Dragon’s Eye, Entr’acte, and Mystery Sea.

It was a trip to Iceland with artist friends in 2005 that set Simon – then a disillusioned rock guitarist and vocalist – on his sonic course. Scouring the countryside in search of the Northern Lights and armed only with a minidisc recorder, he captured waterfalls, cracking ice and other sounds specific to his journey. “These sounds were going to inspire music back in the studio, but while travelling I realised the recordings themselves would be the perfect accompaniment to a future exhibition by the other artists.”

Back in Reykjavik, at a record store called 12 Tonar, Whetham found music that was more abstract than anything he’d ever heard, along with albums by artists such as Chris Watson and Lawrence English, both using field recordings. “Everything kind of fell into place: I discovered my love of sound hunting, and the mental state it puts you in, and also discovered a small but global community of artists and musicians working in the same way.

“For me, the act of listening rather than just hearing (there’s a big difference) is an important one, and one I like to share. Working in various ways, I expose sounds that are not noticed, or go unheard, and combine them in a way that leads you on a journey in what I feel is quite cinematic.”

At a recent show in Hanoi, members of Whetham’s audience said they found themselves remembering certain places they’d been or times in their lives they’d previously forgotten. “This is the power of the sound material I work with, and one I enjoy experimenting with.” Whetham will be conducting his sound experiments alongside neo-beat poet Antonio Pineda and a Cambodian drummer at Meta House this week. Lend him your ears.

WHO: Sound artist Simon Whetham and neo-beat poet Antonio Pineda
WHAT: The art of sound
WHERE: Meta House, #37 Sothearos Blvd.
WHEN: 9pm June 29
WHY: Feed your ears

 

 

Noor Mahmood almost achieved the unthinkable not so long ago: about to fly first-class to Dubai, the 36-year-old United Arab Emirates national calmly deposited his hand luggage on an x-ray scanner at Bangkok Airport. As the case trundled past security, no one noticed the marmoset, gibbon, Asiatic black bear and four leopards – all drugged and less than two months old – packed tightly inside.

Just as he was about to board, Mahmood felt a hand on his shoulder. He bragged to the arresting wildlife taskforce police officers about having connections with a former Thai prime minister in the hope of being released, but the officers refused to budge and a conviction seemed certain – until, that is, he was released on bail and fled the country.

The scenario is all too familiar to those who work to combat Southeast Asia’s illegal trade in wildlife. Prosecutions are rare; prison sentences even more so. The trade in endangered species is believed to be worth up to $30 billion a year, 25% of which passes through Southeast Asia. And the volume is increasing, according to the World Wildlife Fund for Nature’s regional office, but so are efforts to stop it.

Among those making such efforts is Phnom Tamao Wildlife Sanctuary just outside Phnom Penh, a sprawling 2,500-acre safe house for exotic creatures rescued from the clutches of such would-be smugglers. The sanctuary is run by Wildlife Alliance within a protected forest, and is home to a spectacular array of fauna, including the world’s largest captive collections of pileated gibbons and Malayan sun bears. Other rarities include the delightfully named hairy-nosed otter, the slow loris and the knobbly kneed greater adjutant stork, a feathered oddity if ever there was one.

Here, more than 1,200 creatures representing 93 endangered or threatened species preen, posture and play in the safety of leafy enclosures, peered at by 20,000 curious onlookers every year. The most vulnerable are babies which have lost their mothers or been separated from their family groups – and it’s to this end that Sharky Bar is hosting a two-day rockfest this weekend to raise funds for a much-needed nursery.

Chouk the elephant is a case in point: found with his foot torn off by a hunter’s trap, today he romps through Phnom Tamao forest propped up by a prosthetic limb. “Chouk is now on his fourth prosthesis,” says Wildlife Rescue Director Nick Marx. “It’s changed his life radically. Before he had a prosthetic limb, he used to walk in the forest with his big sister and he was getting tired very quickly. He’d stop frequently for a rest and a sleep. As soon as we gave him his first prosthesis, he just took off straight away. He was fine.

“This is exactly why we need money to build a nursery: to keep our animals nicely, with all the love and attention that they need, and the proper care. We do a good job of that at the moment, but we don’t have a specific place for it. We don’t have money to throw away, so we have to use an existing facility, but put it to better use for baby animals, with easy-to-clean tiles and simple utilities such as running water and solar panels to provide electricity. If we don’t get the funds to do this, we won’t stop looking after baby animals, it’s just that we could be doing it better.”

Rolling Stones cover band Stoned Again will headline throughout, with all-girl punk group The Herding Cats making a special appearance on Friday. On Saturday, Stoned Again will be joined by regional rhythm and blues maestro Curtis King and local indie pin-ups the Teaner Turners. Up for grabs via raffle tickets and an auction are everything from stays at Independence Hotel in Sihanoukville and Sokha Angkor Resort in Siem Reap to a Cambodian Country Club membership and jewellery from some of New York’s hottest designers. Rarrrrrgh.

WHO: Stoned Again, Herding Cats, Curtis King, Teaner Turners
WHAT: Wildlife Alliance fundraiser
WHERE: Sharky Bar, St. 130
WHEN: 7pm April 27 and 28
WHY: Because inside you there’s a baby beastie just waiting to get out