This month, LA-based vintage Cambodian psych-pop outfit Dengue Fever will be celebrating 20 years of their self-titled debut album, a project which preceded their 2005 breakthrough album Escape From Dragon House and notable soundtrack placement in media ranging from Jim Jarmusch’s feature film Broken Flowers to HBO’s early prestige-TV-era series Weeds. Though we haven’t heard much from the LA-based ensemble since 2015’s The Deepest Lake, today they’ve returned with the news that their sixth studio album Ting Mong will arrive September 15 via their own Tuk Tuk Records.
The announcement comes paired with the record’s first single “Touch Me Not,” which reflects the band’s thesis on the new material of highlighting vocalist Chhom Nimol’s vocals over the “frenetic energy and noise” of their prior output. “We gave ourselves parameters recording Ting Mong, but we smashed the rules we created for ourselves on past albums,” bassist Senon Williams explains. “The songs’ sole purpose was to let Chhom’s voice soar. It was our mood or perhaps the mood of the world that gave us focus on the sublime and the melancholy.”
Pairing with the more pastoral instrumental heard on “Touch Me Not” is the track’s official video, which sees the band performing the track in various desert landscapes. Check it out below.
