Image. WePresent

By Sébastien Robert
2018

As part of our Time/Place program, we sent Sébastien Robert to Cambodia in search of a dying form of traditional music.

""Phleng Arak - also called Phleng Memot - is a Khmer traditional music performed during magical ceremonies to call spirits when there is no rain, if animals or humans are struck by disease, or when an important event is planned," he explains."

"We arrived in the middle of the afternoon at the entrance of the abandoned Khmer Rouge airport that I wanted to check out. A soldier with an AK47 was guarding the entrance so I was happy that Kosal could negotiate directly in Khmer. For 1$ we could get in with the tuk-tuk, on condition we did not take any pictures inside."

"In a cafe I meet up with Emily Howe, a PhD candidate in ethnomusicology at Boston University currently researching the relationship between music/sound and development in Cambodia, including Phleng Arak. Later in the afternoon, we met with Raksmey - the person who arranged the recording session with the musicians. He is an anthropologist and administrator of the Kampong Thom Department of Culture with a general interest in documenting heritage in Cambodia."

"We arrived at one house on stilts where the musicians were located. I didn’t really introduce myself because I was already busy setting up the recorders and looking for the best spot to photograph them. They actually joked about it at some point, asking if I was mute or something. "

"Four musicians were playing the Sko Dai, a relatively small drum made of jackfruit wood and covered with snake or lizard skin. One of them was also the main singer. The fifth musician was playing the Tro Khmer, a bowed three silk string instrument made from a special type of coconut covered on one end with snake skin. And the last musician was playing the Sralai, a sort of small oboe made of palm leaf."

full https://wepresent.wetransfer.com/story/ ... en-robert/

Phleng Arak thread : cambodian-culture-and-language/topic30355.html#p348115