ABSTRACT
This chapter examines processes of resurgence and re-indigenization of a people devastated by tyranny of the most brutal kind. It examines Cambodian popular music primarily as human experience; as performed, danced and listened to, identified with, ritualized, and spatialized by living cultural bearers in their indigenous land. Regarding a pure sound analysis of current Cambodian popular music it is in the compositional process where the lack of resources is apparent. The historical lineage of Cambodian popular music is rich and multifaceted. Western musical instruments were introduced during the late 1800s by the French, who, as colonists or technically "protectors", established institutions for the training of Europeanized concert performers. Cambodia consists of lush rice paddies and equatorial forest crisscrossed by a desolate tangle of dirt roads, rusted, tin shanty houses, and swarms of motor scooters often carrying entire families. Multifaceted socioeconomic, political, and creative forces observably direct the flows and dynamics of popular music in Cambodia.
