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Start Date: October 14, 2017
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BANTEAY AMPIL BAND 'Cambodian Liberation Songs' LP (France, Akuphone, Catalogue #AKULP1004) Brand new/unplayed copy of limited Akuphone label edition LP of "Cambodian Liberation Songs" by the Banteay Ampil Band. Originally recorded in Singapore and released on LP and cassette in Cambodia in 1983. This Akuphone label edition includes a 24-page booklet with liner notes and exclusive photos, maxi postcard and redeem code.

(NOTE: LIMITED VINYL EDITION!)

'Cambodian Liberation Songs is a painful call from forgotten resistance fighters. It is a captivating and moving record, a touching testimony of Cambodian history, that brings to the world the breathless voice of the resistance members of the resistance from the Banteay Ampil Band. Released in 1983, Cambodian Liberation Songs is a mysterious and overwhelming record. As a genuine piece of history, this "eloquent sadness and fierce passion" runs the gamut of Cambodian music, from folk to rock, expressing their suffering and pain. On April 17, 1975, the Cambodian people, already crushed under national and international conflicts, were commanded by force to forget their own past; It was "Year 0" of the Khmer Rouge calendar. Almost four years of genocide would follow before the start of a war between the Vietnamese army and the Khmers Rouge. Resistance units engaged in the conflict against what they considered as a Vietnamese invasion. This record, produced by a resistance group, was given the reference number KHMER 001. It was undoubtedly the first record composed and performed by non-Khmer Cambodians after the tragic events of 1975-79. The refugee camp of Ampil, near the Thai border, witnessed the creation of the Banteay Ampil Band. Musicians and female singers, who had hidden their talents during the genocide, gathered around the composer and violinist Oum Dara to engage in a new struggle: the resistance. Oum Dara, who had been a composer for Sin Sisamouth and Ros Srey Sothea, among others, adapted several of his creations. It is therefore, with a poignant charm, that the Banteay Ampil Band binds together the golden age of Khmer music from the 1960s with the traditional repertoire and the context of their daily struggles. Violin, guitar and voices work together to produce melancholic and intense songs - the stirring tone of grief expressed by these resistant fighters. The band went to Singapore to record Cambodian Liberation Songs, the only record of the "Khmer People's National Liberation Front".'

"The 2015 documentary Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten told the tragic story of Cambodian rock musicians who thrived in the ‘60s and were killed when Pol Pot began his reign of terror in 1975. The Banteay Ampil Band’s 1983 album Cambodian Liberation Songs is, in the words of reissue label Akuphone, propaganda. But this largely plaintive and occasionally rocking music is the propaganda of resistance.

Oum Dara composed music in the ‘60s for singers like Sinn Sisamouth and Ros Serey Sothea, who disappeared or were killed after the new regime outlawed any music that was not nationalistic. Furthermore, Pol Pot for the most part killed anyone who wasn’t a peasant, so his one-to-three million victims included many of the nation’s best-loved musicians. Oum escaped with just deportation, avoiding harsher punishment by keeping his talents a secret. He took shelter in a refugee camp in Ampil, near the Thai border, where he formed the Banteay Ampil Band.

Also known as the Band of the Khmer People’s National Liberation Front, the group went to Singapore to record their only album, distributed in vinyl and cassette editions like musical samizdat. While its music at times recalls the doomed artists on the Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten soundtrack, it’s an even more somber affair.

Oum, who played violin and keyboards, conducted members of the band, which included two female singers, three male singers, bass, two guitars, violin and drums. Song arrangements echoed music from an era that had been largely destroyed, and Oum and his group preserved its memory and inspired the resistance.

Even with the rock instrumentation, ballads dominate. “My Last Words” opens with a sorrowful vocal from female singer Khoy Sarim. “Please Take Care of My Mother,” led by male vocalist Meas Sopha, is a moody rocker with a biting one-note guitar line. The aching violin that opens “Tuol Tneung (The Hillock of the Vine),” a duet with Khoy and Meas, is a Cambodian blues that evokes the pain of genocide. “Please Avenge My Blood, Darling” is in a similar vein, the intense violin timbre accompanying Meas on another soulful lament.

Somewhat more upbeat, at least musically, is “Don’t Forget Khmer Blood,” a duet led by Nhep Davy and Khuon Khemarin that has a wistful melody and rock guitar fills. Melodic, reverbed surf-like guitar opens “Destroy the Communist Viet!,” another duet by Nhep and Khuon, and “Look at the Sky.” “Follow the Front” is appropriately martial, with a marching beat, and it puts the cheesy organ of the ballad “I’m Waiting for You” in a startling context of pre-Beatles pop appropriated for propaganda.

The album ends with its most rocking number, “The Vietnamese Have Invaded Our Country,” led by Khoy with a fuzztone guitar intro and a male chorus that almost affects a rockabilly hiccup. Perhaps it’s a function of Western music not reaching Cambodian ears, but it’s curious that this resistance music of the early ‘80s is in such stark contrast to the angry political punk that came out of the West in the ‘70s and ‘80s; The Dead Kennedys did not appropriate local musical styles for “Holiday in Cambodia.” Cambodian Liberation Songs documents the gentle music of a people struggling to recover from genocide. It’s sobering to hear pop music forms that seem so benign to Western ears used to tell the story of a national tragedy.

The release of this album coincides with a reissue that may be the label’s most entertaining entry yet. Lam Seung!! is an EP of sinuous Lao synth pop (and two contemporary remixes) by the mysterious Sothy, whom the label has been unable to locate. Akuphone’s growing catalog focuses on musicians who have endured great political upheaval, and Cambodian Liberation Songs is its strongest and most powerful release yet."

Pat Padua. Spectrum Culture. March, 2, 2017. 

- Released in 1983, Cambodian Liberation Songs a touching testimony of Cambodian history, that brings to the world the breathless voice of the resistance members of the resistance from the Banteay Ampil Band.
- The refugee camp of Ampil, near the Thai border, witnessed the creation of the Banteay Ampil Band, gathered around the composer and violinist Oum Dara.
- The first record composed and performed by non-Khmer Cambodians after the tragic events of 1975-79.
- Violin, guitar and voices work together to produce melancholic and intense songs - the stirring tone of grief expressed by these resistant fighters.

Tracks on this LP are as follows:

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