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".
Phnom Penh, Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City (then Saigon), Jakarta and even Singapore all boasted lively entertainment scenes during this period, and in the opening chapter, Peyok gives a handy overview of the development of Cambodian popular music. She traces the country's cultural history from the original golden era of the Angkor kings and highlights the importance of traditional folk music in Khmer culture. But while we can research the roots of Thai or Vietnamese popular music and even interview surviving musicians and producers from the 1960s, the tragedy of the Khmer Rouge genocide means that nearly all the musicians from that era, and indeed any cultural worker, were killed and much of the infrastructure of the entertainment industry was completely destroyed.
The author explains how she came to be in Cambodia and how she became interested in contemporary Khmer music. She had discovered the early cassette of old hits, Cambodian Rocks, various World Music labels, as well as the revivalist music of San Diego-based Dengue Fever, who have taken their version of the Khmer sound across the globe, and Cambodia-based The Cambodian Space Project. She moved to Cambodia with her partner, an English teacher, and began crisscrossing the country in search of music and musical survivors. What makes this different from the few other books that have been written on Southeast Asian pop history -- mainly academic -- is that it is written in the form of a musical travelogue, and the adventures Peyok has on her journey. As a result, the book is a very enjoyable read indeed.
