Phnom on feel the noise

Having always been partial to a spot of musical exotica, Caught In The Net was tickled all sorts of colours this fortnight to discover not one, but two new records which are unlike anything we’ve copped an earful of before.

First to make it on to our iTunes was the Music From Saharan Cellphones Vol. 1 album, which can be downloaded free from bit.ly/d3SFsH.
Previously a cassette-only release, the 12-tracker is the handiwork of sahelsounds.com man Chris Kirkley, who’s travelled extensively in West Africa.
“As the weary passengers sit, they’re pulling out cellphones, and soon the mass is illuminated by little square blue screens,” he explains. “There’s no cellular phone reception here – this is not important. They’re not making calls. Rather, what ensues is an orchestra of tinny digital audio, a menagerie of sound, beamed out like starlight over the plain.
“As ubiquitous media devices, they’re perhaps most used in sharing and exchange of files, particularly bluetooth transfers of mp3s. While in Kidal I collected memory cards from cellphones and copied loads of mp3s – ranging from Tamashek guitar, Algerian raï, Ivory Coast coupé décalé, Angolan kuduro and hip hop, as well as loads of Arabic habibe pop, French ballads, Bollywood hits, and Dire Straits.”
From there it’s but a mere mouse-click to soundcloud.com/kartel/mean-visa-kmean-bai-have-visa where you can check out Khmer jungle rockers The Cambodian Psych Project.
The band, whose debut 2011: A Space Odyssey album lands this week, are fronted by Srey Thy whose back-story is a little more unusual than your average BRITS School wannabes.
“Born into a poor family in the poverty stricken region of Prey Veng, Thy was a child labourer from the age of nine,” reads their biog. “As the eldest daughter she was expected to provide for her family. Thy left home at the age of 18 heading to Phnom Penh in search of a work but while there she was kidnapped and nearly forced into a sex trafficking ring. Left tied to a bed with electrical wires around her wrist for hours, an unknown woman freed her and gave her $2.50. Thy fled.
“Following this defining moment in her life, Thy went on to work odd jobs when and where she could, sending money back to her parents and her young son as often as possible. The band came together in 2009 when Julien Poulson, an Australian musician and film producer, was in Phnom Penh looking for Cambodian musicians to work with. He stumbled across Srey Thy singing in a karaoke bar and was instantly taken with her. A couple of months later she was part of a band and The Cambodian Space Project was born.”
The most delicious of culture clashes, the band mix traditional Khmer songs and instrumentation with the sort of psychedlic wig-outs American GIs kicked back to while stationed in Cambodia during the ‘60s and ‘70s.
Which just leaves time for quick visits to youtube.com/watch?v=-hQ0fLmVM70 (Jim Carrey sings Radiohead’s ‘Creep’ in New York club); xdress.com (frilly knickers with a difference); scroobiuspip.co.uk/bashthebeard (fun and follicles Pip-style); and amzn.to/rtdjGU (Alan Partridge on his new memoir).