delicium/delirium: dengue fever

You have been here: the beach-side, in the evening? The lights and music at the edge of humanity. Mediocre music heard filtering out of distant doors, the words garbled. Contemplating a long night, to come or perhaps already passed. Attention at the edge of engagement. Confusion: should you go in or not?

You have surely wanted to be here: a foreign land, the beach-side, in the night? A grimy place, humid.. warm.. comfortable.. cheap. Bad beer, perhaps, but plentiful. The lyric of sex hovering around you all evening. The poorly tuned band, and the woman singing in a strange tongue, too fast for you to follow the sounds, but too slow to be exciting. Confusion: should you tune her out or not? Nothing else to do, but no energy to do anything else, either.

This is the delirium of Dengue Fever. The dreamland of Cambodia, captured in the white man’s gaze in City of Ghosts, and brought to life by the wonderfully anachronistic music of Ethan & Zac Holtzmann and Chhom Nimol. Like Arcade Fire, but twisted in the direction of some rather obscure (to Western ears) pop music, from 60′s Cambodia – how did they even discover this stuff in LA? – Dengue Fever is equal parts throwback and re-invention. It’s definitely an unusual sound to create: the screechy guitars reminiscent of bad tapes & tape players, a harsh, flattened bass (courtesy of tinny amplifiers) and Nimol’s high-pitched vocals all conspire to produce a slightly sad, jangling effect (despite the irony of doing all this on modern sound systems).

The mood is one of loss, kitschy love, lust, and plain heat, but in a nice South-East Asian sort of way (with song titles like Ethanopium, Flowers, I’m Sixteen, Monsoon of Perfume, 22 Nights, We Were Gonna). In one of their rare English-language songs Tiger Phone Card, they declaim:

“You live in Phnom Penh (Zac)
You live in New York City (Chhom)
But I think about you so so so so (together)
So much I forget to eat

If you’re a guy with an Asian chick fetish, grab your feni and listen up.

Hold My Hips from the album Dengue Fever by Dengue Fever Buy from Emusic or Amazon More Dengue Fever at Last.fm

~posted by arvind

black

Dawn is the sacred hour.
Dawn is the sacred hour,
Saffron and rose-coloured it throws open the doors of the sky.

Mists, like evil spirits, shrink and shrivel,
Vanish into thin air.
The sun pierces them through and through.

It lights the recesses of cavelike shrines,
Flashes on the brass and copper vessels of bathers in the river.
Pure grace.

Once the breath goes out, it’s fit to burn.

Your head,
Your turban, artfully arranged, will adorn it,
With the beaks of crows.

Your bones will burn like tinder,
Your hair will burn like hay.

While Vishnu reclines on a serpent called Endless,
Don’t fear death; welcome it.
Once the breath goes out,
Once the breath goes out, it’s fit to burn.

Dawn is the sacred hour.

World,
Secular or social interests as distinguished from the religious or spiritual.

Here’s the cause of it all –
It’s a house of tricks.

Life has slipped away.
No-one is left on the road,
And in each direction, the evening dark has come

Here’s the cause of it all –
(It’s a house of tricks)
It’s a house of tricks.
Ignore the world.
Ignore the world.
Ignore the world.

Kala from the album City of Light Buy from Amazon More Bill Laswell at Last.fm

~posted by nithya