Wednesday, April 7 at 4:30pm MDT
Part of the聽Sound and Noise in Asia聽Speaker Series.
In this talk, I trace the contemporary circulation of 鈥済olden era鈥� 1960s and 1970s Cambodian popular music recordings as a global media archeology. I seek to contextualize and historicize revivals of pre-Khmer Rouge 鈥淐ambodian Rock鈥� through the mediated movements of cassette tapes among North American independent labels and the activities of online archivists and heritage centers in present-day Cambodia,聽as well as in the documentary film聽Don鈥檛 Think I鈥檝e Forgotten, the play聽Cambodian Rock Band,聽and the聽Los Angeles based group Dengue Fever. Drawing from ethnographic interviews with contemporary preservationists and reissue labels in Cambodia, California, Oregon, and Massachusetts, I consider the role of music in memories of genocide and war, the importance of physical materials in the global recognition of Southeast Asian history, and the ethical politics of media access in the transition to a digital archive.
David Novak聽is Associate Professor at the University of California Santa Barbara and Director of the Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Music. He is the author of聽Japanoise: Music at the Edge of Circulation聽(Duke 2013,聽) and co-editor of聽Keywords in Sound聽(Duke 2015).