Music release

Sleepwalking Through the Mekong (album)

Sleepwalking Through the Mekong is the 2009 soundtrack to the documentary about Dengue Fever's first tour of Cambodia.[1][2]

Album cover in red, yellow and blue tones: a young man's face beside a tall stack of loudspeakers, with the title in yellow.
Cover of Sleepwalking Through the Mekong (2009).

About the release

M80 Records released the soundtrack on April 14, 2009, alongside John Pirozzi's documentary Sleepwalking Through the Mekong.[1][2] It came out as a DVD and CD set and as a digital download.[3][2] A 2012 review in Verge Magazine gives the label as Real World Records.[4]

The 17 tracks mix Dengue Fever recordings with collaborations, live material, a dialogue excerpt and classic songs by Cambodian musicians.[1][2] The band plays with the master musicians Tep Mary and Kong Nai, and the disc also carries recordings by Sinn Sisamouth, Ros Serey Sothea, Meas Samoun and Khee Sokley.[1][2] AllMusic heard the collection as partly an overview of the band's career and partly a record of the sounds and styles that shaped it.[1] It includes two short instrumentals, among them "March of the Balloon Animals," a couple of live tracks and reworkings of earlier songs, such as a "Sleepwalking Version" of "Seeing Hands."[1][2]

"Tip My Canoe" was first recorded by Sinn Sisamouth and Ros Serey Sothea, and "Hold My Hips" by Ros Serey Sothea. "Ethanopium" was written by the Ethiopian musician Mulatu Astatke.[5] The music joins Cambodian pop, the Khmer rock that had itself drawn on American rock and surf music, with heavy psychedelic and garage sounds.[4] The album is dedicated to the singers and musicians who died under the Pol Pot regime.[5]

Recording

Songs for the film were recorded at Babel Studio in Phnom Penh and Shoebox Studio in Los Angeles.[1][5] Samath Cheng and Sarin Chuon assisted with recording and mixing in Cambodia.[5] Senon Williams handled art direction and graphic design.[5]

Musicians

  • Chhom Nimol, vocals
  • Zac Holtzman, guitar and vocals
  • Ethan Holtzman, keyboards
  • Senon Williams, bass
  • David Ralicke, saxophone and flute
  • Paul Dreux Smith, drums[5][1]

The film

The documentary follows the band's first trip to perform in Cambodia in 2005, a homecoming for Nimol, who was born there.[2][4] It came four years after the Holtzman brothers met Nimol in 2001.[3] Pirozzi, an American director and cinematographer, went with the band, and a small Cambodian crew filmed the trip over ten days.[3] The band performs with Cambodian musicians who have worked to preserve the Khmer sound, and the film ends with a concert in a Phnom Penh slum.[3]

Vinyl edition

For Record Store Day Black Friday 2022, Minky Records issued the soundtrack as a two-LP set on transparent yellow and blue vinyl, catalog number MKY3306.[5][2] It was the soundtrack's first and only vinyl release, limited to 1,000 copies, and it does not include the DVD.[2]

Track list

  1. "Sleepwalking Through the Mekong," Dengue Fever (3:38)
  2. "Dondung Goan Gay," Meas Samoun (3:26)
  3. "March of the Balloon Animals," Dengue Fever (2:15)
  4. "Tip My Canoe," Dengue Fever (4:42)
  5. "Master Tep Mary," Tep Mary and Dengue Fever (2:00)
  6. "Hummingbird," Dengue Fever (5:07)
  7. "New Years Eve," Sinn Sisamouth and Ros Serey Sothea (3:23)
  8. "Ethanopium (Live at Snowy's)," Dengue Fever (6:50)
  9. "Psychologically Healing," dialogue excerpt (0:21)
  10. "The Orphan," Khee Sokley (0:49)
  11. "Master Kong Nai," Kong Nai and Dengue Fever (4:02)
  12. "Hold My Hips," Dengue Fever (4:30)
  13. "Seeing Hands (Sleepwalking Version)," Dengue Fever (3:39)
  14. "Mou Pei Na," Sinn Sisamouth and Ros Serey Sothea (1:54)
  15. "Today I Learnt To Drink," Ros Serey Sothea (2:13)
  16. "One Thousand Tears of a Tarantula," Dengue Fever (6:42)
  17. "Phnom Chisor Serenade," Dengue Fever (0:38)[2][1]

Access

References 5
  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 Dengue Fever Music, Sleepwalking Through the Mekong (November 17, 2022)
  2. ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 Dengue Fever on Bandcamp, Sleepwalking Through The Mekong (OST)
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Time, A Dose of the Delta Blues (July 27, 2009)
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Verge Magazine, Sleepwalking Through the Mekong: Dengue Fever (February 23, 2012)
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 Discogs, Dengue Fever: Sleepwalking Through The Mekong
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This page was last edited on 5 October 2026, at 09:16.