Daily Archives: February 27, 2014

chhoun vanna – toa thea youm chlong (birds are singing but my lover won’t return)

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“The birds are chirping, to and fro
My love, have you forgotten me?
As water can’t cut through the sand
I can’t cut you from my memories
The bridge (between you and I) has broken
The pathway is gone, and the water is so very deep
How am I to find you on the other side, so far away?”

Chhoun Vanna was a Cambodian singer between the 1950s and ’70s. She and her sister Chhoun Malai survived the Khmer Rouge genocide.

ros sereysothea – who’ll stop the rain?

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Cambodian cover by Ros Sereysothea and Sinn Sisamouth of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Who’ll Stop The Rain?”. They died under unknown circumstances during the Khmer Rouge reign of terror,  as did countless other artists and intellectuals murdered in Pol Pot’s Killing Fields, and this recording only survived on tapes smuggled out of the country.

“Long as I remember the rain been comin’ down.
Clouds of mystery pourin’ confusion on the ground.
Good men through the ages, tryin’ to find the sun;
And I wonder, still I wonder, who’ll stop the rain.”

Read more of their story HERE.

ros sereysothea – i will starve myself to death/ shave your beard

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I hardly ever put on a cd or listen to an LP these days (last is prolly due to the fact,that I killed my speakers/amplifier). In fact i am totally addicted to the net when it comes to music. I also am an avid KCRW listener. I often tune in to Henry Rollins’s radio show on KCRW. Henry does all the searching, comes up with all the cool tunes from every genre all over the place and all I have to do is listen. It was due to his radio show that i started listening to Sinn Sisamouth. This led me to Ros Sereysothea. I am 100% fascinated with her singing and music.

For the last days, I keep playing over and over this on Spotify:’ ‘Dengue Fever Presents Electric Cambodia”. Sounds amazing,and wished that i could understand the language. All performers on this compilation are dead,or ”vanished”. Killed/died during the communist Khmer Rouge regime.

”Electric Cambodia may be one of the saddest and most enraging compilations released this year—not for the music, but for the history. The performers are dead, all dead, or “vanished” into the Killing Fields—murdered, presumably, although the how is a mystery. Did they die quickly or slowly? ” – read more of this review HERE.

Ros Sereysothea – Shave your Beard