Tuesday, 28 July 2009By Sarah Cuddon
BBC News
Chhom Nimol fronts the LA-based Khmer rock band Dengue Fever
Decades after Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge silenced the sound of Westernised music in Cambodia, the little-known 60s genre "Khmer rock" is finding new fans.
Khmer rock is the sound of the West meeting the East in the 1960s - a mixture of US surf guitar music, early rock and doo-wop mixed with Cambodian traditional instruments.
At the time, the music was virtually unknown outside Asia but its followers in the West are now burgeoning.
Music writer Nik Cohn is a new fan who stumbled across the sound by chance.
He said: "One night I was watching (the film) City of Ghosts, and there's an amazing moment when Matt Dillon jumps on a motorbike and rides through Phnom Penh and this incredible music comes on. An unbelievable voice.
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