Showing 1 - 6 of 6
Travel notes
Life, John Clewley, Published on 23/05/2023
» Cambodia, like many Southeast Asian countries, enjoyed a golden era of popular music during the 1950s and 1960s, when Phnom Penh, known as the "Pearl of the Orient" became an important cultural centre, a breading ground for the meeting of Western rock and pop and Cambodian music. Author Dee Peyok in her fascinating new book Away From Beloved Lover: A Musical Journey Through Cambodia (Granta, UK, 2023) notes that "the music of East and West merged across Southeast Asia to the most fascinating mélange of instruments, attitudes and expressionism".
Time to do the soukous
Life, John Clewley, Published on 12/10/2021
» Congolese rumba, sometimes called rumba Lingala or rumba Congolais, is likely to join khon, a Thai masked dance drama, khaen music of Laos, chapei dang veng of Cambodia, Cuban son and Dominican bachata on Unesco's Intangible Cultural Heritage list. In August this year, the two countries from the Congo Basin, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Republic of the Congo (ROC), announced a joint bid to add Congolese rumba to the list.
Of khaen and men
Life, John Clewley, Published on 16/02/2021
» Thai Country Living, a short film documentary released in 2020, is a delightful sojourn into the rural life of khaen maker Suman "Chang Bour" Tapkham, his family and village in the peaceful backwaters of the Isan region.
Northeastern grooves by way of Amsterdam
Life, John Clewley, Published on 24/09/2019
» Apichat Pakwan, a fusion or hybrid music collective from Isan and the Netherlands, will release their first album, Esantronics, at the end of October. The band released an EP in 2017 but this will be their full-length debut and fans of Isan and electronic music will be delighted.
Mesmerising molam
Life, John Clewley, Published on 09/05/2017
» Twenty-five years ago I joined a team from the Japan Foundation on a tour of Isan to meet and talk to molam artists, as part of a project on Lao music in the region. We met up with the then-president of the Molam Association, National Artist Kane Dalao, and his two female molam partners, Boonpeng Faiphewchai and Chaweewan Damnoen (both later awarded national artist status), and joined the trio as they performed concerts in villages for social ceremonies like weddings in and around Khon Kaen.
Sounds of the Hmong
Life, John Clewley, Published on 18/04/2017
» Chiang Mai archivist and musician Victoria Vorreiter published a book on tribal music, Songs Of Memory: Traditional Music Of The Golden Triangle, in 2009. Since then she has been busy travelling, researching and recording music from the tribal peoples of the mountains, and for the past six years her focus has been on Hmong music, mainly from tribal groups living in Thailand and Laos.