In Phnom Penh’s sweltering heat, the world is reduced to a manic kaleidoscope. The melee is not unlike being trapped inside a beehive. The swarming buzz of motorbikes and half-conked-out minibuses fills the air with a deafening rattle. Neon flickers from yesteryear, and amid the aged modernity, monolithic pagodas from an even older yesteryear rise. The atmosphere is one of a post-war city healing its wounds—rediscovering its once-thriving culture.
For 20 years, from the late 1950s onwards, Cambodia assimilated music from all over the world into a mixed-up milieu that represented a cultural zenith in South Asian music. Everything from everywhere seemed to be happening all at once—until suddenly, it wasn’t. After years of packing out dancefloors with a menagerie of distilled scenes from all over the globe, the brutalist Khmer Rouge regime seemingly snuffed it out overnight.
In full: https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/kak-channthy-diva-who-revived-cambodian-culture/
