Tune in to a state of flux on Cambodian Radio

"Radio Phnom Penh is a dizzying aural travelogue, an hour-plus extravaganza of Cambodian colour that will spin you off the couch and into the back seat of a rattletrap taxi going far too fast in the 100° heat of a Southeast Asian summer. It is also an appropriate homage to what Bishop contends, in his thought-provoking liner notes, is an early example of remix culture. Cambodian society has been made and remade so often by colonialism, war, immigration, terror, economic collapse, and the ensuing boom times that it is now a "somewhat peaceful" patchwork of ethnicities and values. This, naturally, is reflected in the music, which is further complicated by Cambodian producers' love of taking classic tracks from the pre–Khmer Rouge era and overdubbing them with 21st-century sound effects. The basic idea isn't as odd as it might seem. Given our own culture’s increasingly frenetic cannibalization of its own ideas —- in boardrooms and suburban garages alike, the '90s revival is already being planned -— it might just be the way commercial music is being manufactured all over the globe."  ¶ 4/11/2005 07:05:00 PM