Rhiannon Johnson Trio

FRIDAY 23 | Born in Barbados to English parents and having spent her formative years in Kenya before graduating from London’s much-admired Central St Martins University of the Arts, this elegant chanteuse cuts quite the dash on the runway. But it’s what’s underneath – namely, her vocal chords – that really quickens the pulse. “Music in Barbados is a big deal,” says Rhiannon Johnson. “In the Caribbean, it’s a huge part of their culture. Once a year, we’d have this big festival to celebrate the end of the crops and sugar cane; it’s called Crop Over. Listening to the radio and singing was always a huge part of my life, but it wasn’t until I got to school in Kenya that I got the chance to focus on it. It felt great: it was me coming out of myself. I’d only ever sung by myself in the shower.” From singing in the shower to fronting Cambodia’s rowdiest funk band, tonight she takes centre stage at The Groove, conjuring jazz and soul with the help of Barry Spiers (keys) and Ritchy Boisson (drums).

WHO: Rhiannon Johnson Trio
WHAT: Jazz and soul
WHERE: The Groove, Terrazza, #1c Street 282
WHEN: 9pm August 23 & 28
WHY: One of the city’s most silken crooners

Tobi

SATURDAY 24 | He’s been nominated for nine Grammys; shared Newark Festival’s stage with the Rolling Stones’ Mick Taylor; is signed by legendary bass player Andy Fraser of Free fame – and, in his native UK, he’s barely old enough to vote. Tobi Earnshaw, just 18 and already being critically compared to rock monoliths John Mayer, Stevie Ray Vaughn and Eric Clapton, is rather more boy-next-door than such accolades might imply. Until, that is, his fingertips meet the strings of a guitar. The only artist handpicked by Fraser for his label Mctrax international, Tobi is poised to release his second album while he’s in Phnom Penh this week for his first tour of Asia. Cornered recently by The Advisor to talk man-crushes, the strange bathroom habits of the man responsible for 1970 hit All Right Now, and being called by dmme.net the ‘British answer to Justin Bieber’, Tobi had this to say: “As a musician I’m really critical, so if I was asked to define myself I don’t know; I just sort of sing a melody and try to stay in tune! There are pop magazines who say: ‘We won’t take you because you’re too blues for us.’ Then there are blues magazines that say: ‘We won’t take you because you’re not blues enough.’ I’ve had interviews with MOBO… and there’s something else I was going to say but I’ve completely forgotten what. I’m having a senior moment and I’m only 18! I’ve been doing radio interviews all week and this keeps happening; it’s ridiculous!” Bless.

WHO: Tobi
WHAT: “Likened to John Mayer and Robin Thicke, TOBI is actually right in the middle of the two, with a smooth sound enriched by perfect guitar sweeps.” – Music-News.com
WHERE: Memphis Pub, Street 118 & Sisowath Quay
WHEN: 10pm August 24
WHY: “Having Tobi not only on the Grammy eligibility list but in multiple categories is confirmation of my initial instincts that here is a new, young artist to be reckoned with” – Andy Fraser

Puppets Beyond Border

SUNDAY 25 | More than 2,000 years ago, in 121 BC, Emperor Wu of China’s Han dynasty was devastated by the untimely death of one of his favourite concubines. ‘The sound of her silk skirt has stopped,’ the emperor, an accomplished poet, wrote of Li Fu-ren. ‘On the marble pavement dust grows. Her empty room is cold and still. Fallen leaves are piled against the doors. How can I bring my aching heart to rest?’ Grief-stricken, the emperor implored his court officials to bring his lover back to life. Legend has it that, inspired by the lively shadows cast by children playing with dolls inside the court, one of Wu’s aides crafted a perfect replica of the concubine out of leather. Holding the figure in front of an oil lamp, he gently manipulated its limbs to make it ‘dance’. The emperor was delighted – and shadow puppetry was born. “Shadow puppetry is powerful and mysterious in its immateriality, capturing the imagination of people for thousands of years,” says Master Shadow Puppeteer Mann Kosal, one of a new generation of guardians. “Even within the structured storylines, every performance leaves room for improvisation. This allows the art form to remain a relevant, living part of the culture of the time, able to respond to the contemporary needs of the population.” Known as sbaek in Khmer, the puppets are chiselled by hand out of tanned cow hide using traditional methods. Plays are performed as homage to Buddha, the Hindu gods and the ancestral spirits they depict, and as a vehicle for communication with them – the point being to elevate both performers and the audience to ‘a higher level’. Screenings of The Battle To Rebuild Sbaek Thom and Puppets Beyond Borders explore this ancient art.

WHO: Shadow puppets
WHAT: The Battle To Rebuild Sbaek Thom and Puppets Beyond Borders screening
WHERE: Meta House, #37 Sothearos Blvd.
WHEN: 7pm August 25
WHY: Khmer entertainment from the ‘Golden Era’

Just for laughs

TUESDAY 27 | Arizona survivor Tommy Dean “upgraded” to Australia 20 years ago and has since become one of Down Under’s most cherished stand-ups. He’s been described by the Sydney Morning Herald as having ‘more spin’ than cricket legend Shane Warne and has rubbed professional shoulders with comedy doyens Tim Alan and Rosie O’Donnell. “Not your stereotypical Yank, this is an American who eats Vegemite and understands cricket,” says fellow comic Jonathan Atherton, who helped launch the Comedy Club Cambodia. “His comedy is intelligent, insightful and as sharp as a tack.” Jetting in from the US to join Dean is Bob Kuboka, a journalism student-turned-stand-up from Arizona whose sly take on his own ethnicity is one of the most popular features of his act. Warming up the crowds for these international names are local comics Scotty Muldoon (UK), Laura J Snook (UK) and Sam Thomas (US). Bring your humeris.

WHO: Tommy Dean (AU) and Bob Kuboka (US) plus Scotty Muldoon (UK), Laura J Snook (UK) and Sam Thomas (US)
WHAT: Comedy Club
WHERE: Pontoon, Street 172
WHEN: 8:30pm August 27
WHY: Funny people doing what they do best

Space, man

WEDNESDAY 28 | Forty per cent of Cambodian Space Project go their own way in the form of Espresso Thmei tonight to offer a fresh spin on a familiar sound.

WHO: Scott Bywater and Srey Thy
WHAT: Espresso Thmei
WHERE: Equinox, Street 278
WHEN: 9pm August 28
WHY: A fresh spin on the Cambodian Space Project sound

El gipsy

It’s not supposed to be this way. Phnom Penh is meant to be a gritty, hellish capital where the streets flood, the electricity flickers and the brass-knuckle politics taint everything.

But just beneath the surface, a burgeoning colony of artists and musicians pays little heed to the temperament of the crowds, and such harsh underdevelopment, for all its pitfalls, proves an irresistible outpost for a certain brand of bohemian in search of less-travelled frontiers.

It is how The Groove bar came into existence, and how guitarist Diego Dimarques came to find himself perched on a barrelhouse stool sipping bottles of Angkor and playing Spanish jazz at the finest music room in Phnom Penh.

Clean-shaven with greying, shoulder-length hair, the 50-ish-year-old guitar player could easily pass for a son of Jose Reyes, the world-famous flamenco guitarist whose five sons – Nicolas, Canut, Paul, Patchai and Andre – comprise a majority of the Gipsy Kings.

“There are rumours that I was part of the band, the one with the white hair,” Dimarques says, dispelling any notion that he might be a long-haired Nicolas Reyes in disguise. “I am not part of their family in the sense that we have no common blood.”

But Dimarques is a fellow traveller on the same circuit, a compadre in heart and spirit, and considers Gipsy Kings co-founder Jalloul ‘Chico’ Bouchikhi both a friend and inspiration. “I met Chico when I was playing a hotel in Paris in 2006 or 2007 and he was there to promote his new album Freedom. I was surprised to see him and I went to him to apologise for not playing his songs very well, but he told me: ‘The more they are played, the less we forget the culture.’ We talked together around a Pastis and he told me there was no problem if people thought I was part of the band!”

Apologies were hardly necessary. As Chico affirmed, Dimarques had the chops worthy of the Gipsy Kings name.

The Groove is a befitting venue for such musicianship. Long, narrow and candle-lit, the space was created by fellow jazz crooners Richard Boisson and Philippe Javelle. Framed black-and-white photographs of famous singers hang from padded, cloth-covered walls. Seating is limited. The band is never more than a few metres away. The room itself is tucked out back of Terraza, the new two-storey Italian place on Street 282 with big windows, heavy wooden furniture and imported Italian nourishment.

Dimarques works the crowd between sets, shaking hands, talking shop. Ask and he will hand over his guitar, a solid-body classical with custom electrics and Savarez stings. “It’s heavy,” he laments, “but it sounds really nice.”

Born in Paris, Dimarques grew up quick and discovered the pleasures of vice while still young.

“I grew up at the foot of Montmartre in Paris, hanging out at the racetrack and playing pinball with my dad in the bistros, checking out the painters in Montmartre,” he remembers. “Then I started going to cabarets to listen to music, to see the magicians, the singers, the women. I started going out pretty early.”

He spent his summers in northern Spain, where his mother’s family lived, and where music found him. “I was playing tunes from Manitas de Plata and Paco de Lucia when I was 15 years old.”

The Gipsy Kings came on the scene in the 1980s, and along with the rest of the country, the band captivated Dimarques too. “In the ’80s, when the Gipsy Kings started to tour and Jobi Joba became famous, I took my guitar and started to play the same music too. This is how I got this Gipsy reputation.”

Dimarques’ style is mellower, more rumba than flamenco, and converges into something that might be described as Spanish lounge music. The result is a sound less danceable, but far more amorous.

If the streets outside are flooded, all the better.

WHO: Diego Dimarques
WHAT: Gipsy and Latin music
WHERE: The Groove, Terrazza, Street 282
WHEN: 9pm August 19 & 21
WHY: The capital’s very own Gipsy King

Daddy pop

SUNDAY 18 | High-art demigod, consummate businessman or something else altogether? Andy Warhol, commercial illustrator turned controversial soup-can painter, was the greatest artist of the late 20th century – at least that’s the proposition filmmaker Ric Burns examines in his four-hour critical biography of the godfather of pop art. The documentary is peppered with eloquent observations by the likes of Laurie Anderson, Salvador Dali, Jeff Koons and Dennis Hopper. After the screening, just as Warhol woiuld have turned 85, DJ Nico will play the very best of The Velvet Underground, which Warhol managed in the mid-’60s.

WHO: Andy Warhol
WHAT: Andy Warhol: A Documentary Film screening
WHERE: Meta House, #37 Sothearos Blvd.
WHEN: 7pm August 18
WHY: “Isn’t life a series of images that change as they repeat themselves?” – Andy Warhol

Clash of the titans

SATURDAY 16 | The loudest bands in the country go toe-to-toe tonight in this sonic clash of the post-hardcore titans. Sliten6ix, Cambodia’s first and only deathcore group, take on prog-metalheads Splitter. Ear defenders not included.

WHO: Sliten6ix and Splitter
WHAT: Deathcore and prog-metal
WHERE: Show Box, #11 Street 330
WHEN: 8pm August 17
WHY: Cambodia’s loudest bands go toe-to-toe

Taking a trip into sonic space

It is the sort of sound you might expect to hear in deep outer space – the sound of planets aligning, synthesised notes rising and falling like an angel’s sigh. The muffled heartbeat of the bass throbs from deep within an echoing womb; tambourine rattling past the microphone with a sudden metallic swoosh. High above it all a chirping flute swoops and soars, like some giant intergalactic winged thing.

In September 1978, English composer Brian Eno became the de facto father of a whole new noise. Writing in the liner notes of Music for Airports/Ambient 1, Roxy Music’s former synth player set forth his manifesto: “Whereas the extant canned music companies proceed from the basis of regularising environments by blanketing their acoustic and atmospheric idiosyncrasies, Ambient Music is intended to enhance these. Whereas conventional background music is produced by stripping away all sense of doubt and uncertainty (and thus all genuine interest) from the music, Ambient Music retains these qualities. And whereas their intention is to ‘brighten’ the environment by adding stimulus to it (thus supposedly alleviating the tedium of routine tasks and levelling out the natural ups and downs of the body rhythms), Ambient Music is intended to induce calm and a space to think.”

Eno’s choice of the word ‘ambient’, taken from the Latin ambire (‘to surround’), was a deliberate one: his were soundscapes that could alter your state of mind; put you into a ‘higher state’ – the sort of existential altitude usually associated with psychedelics. Inspired by John Cage, who occasionally composed by throwing the I Ching, Eno had made possible Clockwork Orange; Pink Floyd; The Orb and Aphex Twin; down-tempo chill-out designed to ease a tripped-out mind.

Emerging custodians of that sound here include DJ Nicomatic, James Speck (on the splendidly named Korg Kaosillator) and Tim King (guitar), who collectively – under the moniker Electronic Universe – are perhaps Phnom Penh’s first and only live ambient fusion outfit. Joined for their all-improvised, totally unrehearsed three-hour debut earlier this month by flautist Anton Isselhardt, their second gig could feature anything from radio transmitters to a singing saw. The Advisor assembled Electronic Universe at Meta House to talk sonic trips, silly named synthesisers and Mixmaster Morris’ secret acid stash.

‘Kaosillator’ is my new favourite word.

James: If you go on YouTube and type in ‘Kaosillator’, there are whole albums made entirely on one of these things [points to small flashing box]. It’s got a very cool sound to it. You’ve got tons of effects. The real reason I bought it is because it has something called a ‘vocoder’, which is specifically designed to handle the human voice. Do you remember the old song by Joe Walsh, Rocky Mountain? ‘Duh duh duh duh RooOOOcckky MountAAAin…’ In the late 1960s and early 1970s, people got into the whole synthesised voice thing.

Tim: Like Cher! ‘Do you belieeeEEEeeeEEEeeeve in life after love…’

James: It has 16 effects. YOU-CAN-SOUND-LIKE-A-ROBOT or you can lalalaLALALAlaaaaaa… [Sings]

If I had one of those, I’d be making crank calls all the time.

James: The other cool thing is if I put it in a certain key, it’s then got all these scales: pentatonic, chromatic, names I don’t even know. It’s deep music theory: Egyptian music is based on this one particular scale – and all of a sudden it’s got this sound that’s really Middle Eastern. I usually keep it on standard chromatic, which is like a blues harp. Stevie Wonder has this double harp and he’s changing keys with his thumb to take it deeper; same thing here. If I’m with a band, so long as I have the key I can sit there and play all day and every note is in the scale. It’s perfect. That’s what we were doing: Nico was laying down the key, Tim was playing guitar and I was just going nuts on this thing – and it worked. I was playing with the Ukes Of Hazard once and Dylan Walker had a small one. The first time I heard it was when we were at Sharky’s and he added this PSYCHE-FUCKING-DELIC thing. This became our signature sound. We’d be doing a gig and the Kaosillator would come on and people would be, like, ‘What the fuck?!’

Nico: And this was the first time improvising for Anton. He really had to push himself. After about 45 minutes, he said: ‘Are we going to have a break?’ No!

How would you describe this sound you’ve created?

Nico: I have no idea! [Laughs] I really don’t know. The good thing is it doesn’t have to have a name. It’s trance, ambient, meditation, ethno, world music, mixed dub… whatever. I use three or four different sources.

James: And you’re looping, right? Because I would do a sound effect and then I’d have my hands off the Kaosillator but then I’d hear it again and go: ‘Oh, he’s sampling. He’s grabbing it and moving it into the mix.’

So you’re all mad professors, yes?

Tim: That’s right, yes!

Nico: I feel maybe this is a contemporary jam session: like the old concept of a jam session, with a blues harp and stuff, but for the 21st century.

Three hours is a long time to jam without a break. What does it feel like? Do you go through different states?

Nico: Yes, yes, yes, it’s a trip! This time, for the last track I just let it play and then it stopped and at some point there was this break, this silence…

James: Nico went away but Tim and I kept the beat going; I’m jumping up and down, going WEEEooooWEEEEooooWEEEooo and Anton says: ‘When does it end?!’ I don’t know! Just keep playing! But maybe a break might be nice after 30 minutes.

Tim: No! Three hours! It’s nice because I could take my guitar off, go have a drink and then come back. And you can add anything into it: flute, a trombone, vocals…

Nico: I think there’s room for two or three poems.

This is a bit of a departure from your original sound, Nico, isn’t it?

Nico: I joined my first band at the age of 13: punk, new wave noise. We worked with a Casio sampler and a drum set, with noisy and very provocative German lyrics. I wrote them in school and I remember one teacher called me up and she took the piece of paper off me and she read it and I think the track was called Kill The Pope, or something like that, but she was the art teacher and she said: ‘Very good, Nicolaus! Very creative!’ [Laughs]

Good job it wasn’t the religious education teacher.

Nico: Yes, yes! After this we started to be more consumable, we turned into a school pop-rock-blah band. Then my friends and I went to the first ever Depeche Mode gig, when their first album came out, at Metropol. They had four kits, a synthesiser and a tape machine. This was way before Midi; you had to have a clock on the tape machine to synchronise all these synthesisers. The problem was they only had one LP, so they could only play for 40 minutes. At the end they rewound the tape and had to play the whole set again! That was the only way to do an encore: to actually rewind the tape. This must have been 1980. We decided, while we were having dinner after the concert, to kick out the drummer and to not have guitars; just use synthesisers. That was a new thing. This was the future: no more rock and fucking roll! We started to record and did a few demos and eventually we went to Amsterdam and this was the first time I heard house music. We felt it was exactly what Depeche Mode had done a few years before, just with a different beat – it had become more black. Black music was all about the beat, so instead of these kind of white beats, people would thrown in the black beats and it became house. In 1999 I founded a record label, D’Vision. By then the Berlin Wall had come down and the whole scene transformed into a pop scene again. That was the time when we were underground and independent and produced only records we liked very much. At some point these A&R record companies would come in. They didn’t even listen to the music. They said: ‘So, you have a blonde singer? Are you intending to do a video? Has the singer big boobs?’ It’s about the music! Listen to the track! ‘No, no. Just send us the band biog and make sure the singer shows her tits a little.’ This was the point we quit; the point all these techno DJs started to sell out and people would suddenly get $10,000 for one night. I had been trained in piano and flute, but when I was a kid I realised I could never be as good as the people whose music I liked to listen to, so this was when I got into synthesised music. It was very convenient because you could just programme the sequencer in a way you’re not able to play. That’s what I did and that’s what I still do.

James: This is when we got right into the groove. We’re grooving here… [Dances to recording of their debut show]

Reminds me of Frank Zappa.

James: He was doing it acoustically, before the Kaosillator even existed.

Tim: Zappa had a digital audio workstation, so he was able to manipulate digital signals towards the end of his career. That’s now standard, but he had one of the first – way before we got into all this computer stuff. We had one at Berklee Music College in Boston, too, which isn’t far from MIT.

Nico: Next time, I’m going to use Tibetan bowls: I have a whole CD, recorded by a German musician. What’s interesting is this multi-source thing in terms of the media. If I had more space and a sound technician, I’d also connect turntables and probably some radio transmitters and all that stuff. The ambient DJs created this; that’s what it all goes back to. At the end of it, you don’t really know if what you heard is what other people heard! But for me personally it was great fun.
How similar is established ambience to what you’re doing here, with this live ambient fusion concept?

Nico: There are lots of ambient groups, but most of them perform only with synthesisers. You have this poor use of guitars: at the beginning of the ambient movement, things like guitars were prohibited. They wanted to get rid of the rock and roll thing. That changed in the middle of the ’90s. Bands like The Orb did a lot going in this direction. In Germany, it’s not an open concept. Normally, for young electronic musicians, they’re just electronic.
Tim: That live aspect, when you’re making the music happen, it’s not the same as stuff that’s recorded in a studio. And here at Meta House, where you’ve got live visuals on the screens, it’s mesmerising.

Nico: One of my friends is a music scientist based in Berlin and he’s written a thesis entitled What Is Not In The Manual. In it he says that art in electronic music starts when you do something with the instruments or equipment which the equipment was not intended for. For example, German electro  producer, Pole [real name Stefan Bretke], who dropped his Waldorf 4-Pole filter in 1996 and broke it but liked the way it sounded: it scratches and makes these funny noises; it’s broken, you know? But that’s the art. This is what I’m trying to do here; things that are unplanned, uncontrolled, untypical wiring; interesting stuff. I even want to use a singing saw.
James: I want to try the vocoder!

Nico: You can also plug the guitar into the Kaosillator, but then one of you is out of a job… [Laughs]

Nico: I started with a Korg synthesiser when I was 16 because they were quite affordable, but they don’t produce them any more; they’ve become vintage. Nowadays Korg produce these gadgets: they’re synthesisers, you can play them, you can plug a guitar into them, use filters…

Everyone: NyyyyYYYYyyyyEEEeeeRRRrrrr…

Nico: English musicians were really groundbreaking in this kind of sound. There was this ambient DJ, Mixmaster Morris, really in the beginning. I remember he played at The Love Parade in 1991: this older English chap who looked a little bit like one of Ken Kesey’s followers, the Merry Pranksters, with this huge cylinder hat. This guy, nearly 50, he looked completely stoned so we went up to him and he was playing only world music records, sometimes on 70RPM – very slow; very weird stuff, really trippy. We went up to him and said: ‘Hey, Mixmaster! What’s your inspiration?’ He took out one of these record covers and pulled out a whole album-sized blotter sheet of LSD. [Laughs] Guys like him, like Alex Paterson of The Orb, even Jah Wobble, who played with John Lydon. Did you know he went to Thailand to record a whole album with Thai molam artists? Fucking cool! You had this Jah Wobble dub bass and then these Thai musicians on top. There are people still recording this kind of thing in studios; I’m not sure how many people listen to it, possibly it’s only for art critics and connoisseurs, but…

You have to have the outer edge in order for everything else to follow.

Tim: When we’re doing this, I feel like Nico is the mothership and we’re just little spaceships flying around him, interacting. You couldn’t do this with a couple of kids who have no musical experience. You’ve got to have some experience playing with other people. That’s what makes me so happy: you know James isn’t going to do anything too weird or outlandish, nothing uncomfortable. You have to have the idea that you’re not the solo star; the music determines who does what. You feed off each other, off the mothership.

WHO: DJ Nicomatic, James Speck (Kaosillator) and Tim King (guitar)
WHAT: Live ambient fusion
WHERE: Meta House, #37 Sothearos Blvd.
WHEN: 9pm August 22
WHY: “Ambient Music is intended to induce calm and a space to think” – Brian Eno

Taking flight: Wild Wings

If it’s not the monsoon rain then it’s the heavy blanket of humidity that prevents me from dabbling with al fresco dining in Cambodia. No matter how appealing the flora and fauna decorating the terrace, it’s no fun when you’re sweating more fluid than a herd of backpackers could even think about drinking in beer form.

Thankfully, Wild Wing has managed to overcome that problem by building the restaurant around two trees. Towering ceilings accommodate a 30-year-old tree, the centrepiece of the horseshoe-shaped bar, and its slightly smaller companion. Here you can enjoy the delights Mother Nature has to offer. In air-con. Genius.

A domed white ceiling makes the place feel bright, sunlight bouncing around the room. Cement floors give the place a modern, industrial twist, and the minimal décor of random objects such as a bicycle, tennis racquet, violin, guitar and trainers give the place a quirky twist.

Here, the clue is in the name: the signature serving is Buffalo wings. As a plate piled high with juicy, extremely meaty wings passed us, leaving a trail of sumptuous smells, we were tempted. But we decided to stick to a lighter lunch and save the sticky fingers for when there’s more of us to share the choice of six ($4.99), 12 ($7.99) or 20 ($10.99) wings served with a selection of sauces from superhot, BBQ and teriyaki to honey and mango habanero.

Seafood features heavily on the menu too, with a speciality pot offering 1kg of blue crab ($28), mud crab ($25), shrimp ($22) or clams ($12) served with a choice of flavours, including Louisiana-style boiled with Cajun seasoning, hot and juicy, garlic butter and tamarind. But with a range of much lighter daily specials on offer, we went for the kung pao chicken ($3.50) and Buffalo chicken salad ($3.50).

The kung pao chicken was a spicy stir fry made up of a healthy serving of small chunks of chicken, peanuts and chili peppers with steamed rice. Despite being slightly on the dry side, it was an explosion of flavours, with the spicy chili working perfectly with the peanuts. Perfectly presented, the Buffalo chicken salad was a generous helping of sliced chicken breast cooked in hot sauce, giving it a nice kick; romaine lettuce; carrots; cucumber, celery and doused with ranch sauce.
Stuffed and satisfied, we ordered the bill, which came in at $7, and pledged to come back quick because while I love the trees, I’m not sure how long they can survive inside.

Wild Wing, #54 Street 294; 077 827799 / 015 997717.