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  • LIFE

    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".

  • LIFE

    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.

  • LIFE

    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.

  • LIFE

    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.

  • LIFE

    All aboard for some big fun

    Life, John Clewley, Published on 21/06/2016

    » One of my favourite times of the year is when the dry season ends and the countryside is transformed into a sea of green. And nowhere is it more fun to be at this time of year than in Isan. I have happy memories of rainy seasons in Buri Ram, where as soon as the rains arrived the village teenagers would take me out at night with a miner's light fixed on my forehead to hunt for tiny frogs.

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