So Savoeun, “The Golden Voice of Phnom Penh, 1962–1974”
By Elle Carroll · October 01, 2025
Cambodia of the 1960s and early 1970s was a complicated place. It was a nascent country, having only broken from French imperial rule in 1953. Although outwardly neutral in the Vietnam War, its government secretly permitted communist North Vietnamese forces to set up bases and funnel supplies through the country in the mid-1960s. By late 1967, the country had descended into civil war, and tactical bombing campaigns by U.S. forces—kept secret from an increasingly anti-war American public—escalated to all-out carpet bombing with the initiation of Operation Menu in 1969. Tens of thousands were killed.
Out of all the countries that Henry Kissinger came to consider collateral damage, Cambodia’s suffering was among the most acute. A U.S.-backed coup installed a military dictatorship in 1970. It wouldn’t last the decade, toppled by communist Khmer Rouge forces who took the capital, Phnom Penh, in April 1975. State-sponsored genocide ensued.
And yet, Phnom Penh spent the better part of the 1960s modernizing and thriving as the country’s artistic center. Western and Latin music flooded its record stores. Its nightclubs pulsed with the music of Sinn Sisamouth, often considered Cambodia’s Elvis, and his frequent collaborator Ros Sereysothea. Rock bands proliferated. It was into this arty, urban, thrilling environment that So Savoeun emerged, releasing her first record in 1962.
In this first-ever compilation of Savoeun’s work by Akuphone and The Cambodian Vintage Music Archive, it’s easy to understand why she was dubbed “The Golden Cicada Bell.” She’s got a hell of a voice: powerful, loud, steady even in its higher registers, and less ethereal than her contemporaries. She also skewed towards more traditional songs, embracing pop and psychedelic rock less passionately than these same peers. Nevertheless, Cuban influences burst through in the brass of “Dove Perched On The End Vine,” and there’s an undeniable sunny California hippie groove on “Tired of Pleasing You.” Both are among the album’s best. Throughout the compilation, Savoeun appears a consummate collaborator and a versatile duetist, playful and teasing with Sisamouth on “Pa Le Lai” while boldly holding her own around the equally powerful Meas Saman on “Bad From The Start,” itself ripe with Indian musical elements.
Savoeun fled to France in 1975 via Thailand and survived the Khmer Rouge regime. The same cannot be said for Sisamouth, Saman, and Savoeun’s husband and three children. Hindsight thus imbues the compilation with additional tragic complexity. This is a welcome addition to the once-suppressed archive of an extraordinary moment in music. It is the work of one of its few, precious, then-unwitting survivors, albeit with significant contributions from several victims.
Hindsight also being just that, there’s nothing mournful about it. This is joyful, bold music by an artist hungry for the world’s sounds, committed to the musical tradition she has inherited, and with a voice so high and muscular the nearest microphone must have appeared little more than decoration.
Launched in 2015, Akuphone is a French record label based in Paris. Created by Fabrice Géry (aka Cheb Gero), this independent name is dedicated essentially to rare global Pop & Folk Music. From the 1940’s to the 90’s, from 78-rpm microgroove to cassette tapes, Akuphone handles the whole range of audio broadcasting formats.
Akuphone’s productions are limited editions that range from new extended releases of vinyl records to creating original best of albums of artists and thematic compilations, as well as productions of today’s artists.
The catalogue is available in vinyl, CD, as well as digital formats. Each project starts with the restoration of original sound recordings and sleeves, to which a thorough documenting work is added: lyrics transcription and translation, research on the artist’s biography as well as the historical and political context of the original release.
Fabrice Géry, founder of the label, is a music enthusiast and collector, who worked as a record dealer for many years. He launched Akuphone in an “archiving” spirit, drawn by a desire to “explore the world through music”. In an archaeology-like approach, his goal is to put into the limelight the work of artists - musicians and singers - unknown to the general public or fallen into oblivion in the so-called “Western countries”. Far from supporting a romantic or fetishist vision of extra-Western music, the label aims at linking these productions to their historical and political contexts, placing them back in the social and cultural conditions in which they emerged.
Exploring the World in music
Akuphone follows in the wake of such collections as Ocora, Le Chant du Monde, Lyrichord and Folkways Records, although contrary to these, it does not aim at the “purity” or “authenticity” of these cultural forms of expression, so dear to the conservative approach of ethnomusicology. Rather on the other way, Akuphone’s productions attempt at decentring one’s point of view, one’s way to look at and listen to things through musical styles which have been shaped by the flow of intercultural exchanges – emphasized by globalization – and their various fusions. Akuphone ambitions to promote “hyphenated music” and its diversity without emphasizing such ambiguous notions as intermixing and hybridity, which can be considered as commonly accepted stances tinted with eurocentrism.
Akuphone’s Releasing Programme divides into Four Areas
-Global
Its first and main line focuses on rare global Pop & Folk Music – popular and folklore music – generally from Southern territories and also called “global sound” or “World Music”.
-Ritual
Its second line consists of ritual and ceremonial music: compiled according to the various types of rites (daily rites, spiritual or ceremonial rites), these field recordings originate from all parts of the globe.
-Political
Its third line concerns what can be called « propaganda music ». This collection includes a selection of original compilations that aims at rendering political and historical contexts through struggle hymns and revolutionary tunes.
-Now!
Its fourth and last line is composed of works by current artists representative of the « hyphenated music »
Label: Akuphone Records
Country: France
Released: 2025
Source: Digital / ttou
Tags: Cambodia, Khmer, 1960s, Cambodian Pop
1. So Savoeun & Meas Saman - ហៅបងរែកទឹក (Calling For You To Fetch Water) 2:55
2. So Savoeun - គេលេងភ្លេងហើយ (The Music Has Started) 2:43
3. So Savoeun & Meas Saman - ខ្លាចប្រុសចិត្តព្រាន (Afraid of Heartbreaking Men) 3:56
4. So Savoeun - លលកវាយំ (Crying Doves) 2:48
5. So Savoeun & Meas Saman - ក្រសាហូតដាវ (Sword Weaving Heron) 3:25
6. So Savoeun & Meas Saman - ឃុនពីម៉ូច (Bad From The Start) 3:37
7. So Savoeun & Meas Saman - អាឈ្មោលខ្នាយវែង (Long Clawed Rooster) 4:28
8. So Savoeun - លលកហើរទំចុងក្រស់ (Dove Perched On The End Vine) 2:53
9. So Savoeun - រូចទឹកចោលទៅ (Wash It Away With Water) 3:32
10. So Savoeun & Sinn Sisamouth - ប៉ាឡេឡៃ (Pa Le Lai) 2:42
11. So Savoeun & Lek Savath - ដេកថ្ងៃសំចៃតុកយប់ (Sleep During The Day Preparing For Night) 3:47
12. So Savoeun - ឱ!ពពេជចៀប (Oh! Little Peep Bird) 2:46
13. So Savoeun - ម្លប់ដូង (Coconut Shade) 2:55
14. So Savoeun - ខំផ្គាប់ប៉ុណ្ណឹងហើយ (Tired of Pleasing You) 3:59
15. So Savoeun & Meas Saman - រូវនឹងថ្នាំអូនស្រី (In Need Of Your Cure) 5:20
16. So Savoeun & Meas Saman - ក្អែកបូល (Cawing Crow) 3:34
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