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Album Review

The Cambodian Space Project
2011: A Space Odyssey Metal Postcard Records

Article written by Ged M - Oct 2, 2011

The Cambodian Space Project: 2011: A Space Odyssey

There’s a video on the CSP website in which Srey Thy, the elegant and expressive singer with the Cambodian Space Project, says: “the Khmer Rouge killed all the musicians but they couldn’t kill their music”. The greatest achievement of her band, The Cambodian Space Project, is to keep that music alive while adding modern arrangements and writing further songs in the same spirit: a mix of classic 60s Khmer pop and psychedelic rock.

Srey Thy has a history worth an article in itself. She was born in Cambodia’s poorest province, Prey Veng in 1980, just after the Khmer Rouge were forced from power. Narrowly escaping the grasp of sex traffickers, she was a karaoke singer in Phnom Penh for five years before meeting Australian music producer Julian Poulson and forming a band fusing Khmer and Western sounds. And writing new songs herself; you’ll hear more originals if you see the CSP live but here you’ll find the grungy ‘Have Visa, No Have Rice’ which describes food issues in France and the flamboyant garage-rock ‘Kangaroo Boy’.

Other songs on the album were made famous by the legendary Pan Ron and Ros Sereysothea, and show how Cambodian pop borrowed from Western ideas, particularly ‘Dancing a Go Go’, which seems inspired by Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, and ‘Love God’, Shocking Blue’s ‘Venus’ reworded by Ros Sereysothea. Sereysothea’s own ‘I’m Sixteen’ is the best track on the album, Srey Thy’s yearning voice soaring over the great 60s-sounding garage-rock groove.

The story of the Cambodian Space Project is warming in itself, but the music more than stands up and if you can’t see them live (the best way to experience the magic of the CSP), the album is more than just a good substitute.

Links:
http://www.cambodianspaceproject.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Cambodian-Space-Project/102538263132453
http://www.myspace.com/thecambodianspaceproject/