(M80; 68 minutes)

www.m80music.com

BY JUD COST

In a few short years, Dengue Fever, a six-piece rock band from Los Angeles, has accomplished what purveyors of fusion-jazz could never completely pull off: the successful blending of musical styles that, on the surface, seem incompatible. The secret ingredient in this alchemical recipe is America's continuing love affair with the Doors, whose music had just enough exotica to be used in the opening segment of Francis Ford Coppola's Vietnam War epic Apocalypse Now. With a few shakes of Jim Morrison & Co. added to its strangely alluring arrangements (not to mention liberal dollops of surf guitar in mix), the band, whose lead singer sounds unlike anyone you've ever heard, can make instant converts of an entire clubful of patrons who know next to nothing of the Far East or its pop music: the group's exciting hybrid-rock, heartwrenchingly chirped by vocalist Chhom Simol in her native Khmer dialect, can grab you like a giant bamboo fist and wring melancholy and ecstasy from the listener in equal amounts.

Currently in the middle of an extensive U.S. tour, Dengue Fever continues to capitalize on its most recent album, Venus on Earth, which was issued back in January of 2008 and went on to land on numerous year-end best-of lists. Expect the group's profile to rise even further with the just-issued documentary DVD Sleepwalking Through the Mekong (M80; www.m80music.com), an eye-popping document of the band's 2005 tour of Cambodia and directed by John Pirozzi (cinematography on Too Tough To Die: Johnny Ramone and Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man). Adding to the Apocalypse Now flavor of danger lurking around the next river bend, the photos of the males in this combo, from their three previous albums, could have come from the "No-Fly" dossier of George Bush's Homeland Security boys.

Sleepwalking Through The Mekong is a gorgeously colorful, one-way ticket to a part of the world you may have seen only on cable TV, with celebrity chef Tony Bourdain zipping around Thailand on a motorbike in search of fast-food. Instead of curried veg, peanut sauce and steamed rice, Dengue Fever backs Simol's enchanting vocals with David Ralicke's spell-bindingly morose tenor sax, the pounding jungle drums of Paul Dreux Smith, the wide-eyed bass of Senon Williams and the snake-entwined keyboards and guitar of brothers Ethan and Zac Holtzman, taking you deep into the heart of darkness.

Beautifully shot and smartly edited, Sleepwalking will leave you as baffled by traditional Cambodian stage entertainment as it will thrilled by the exploits of these six good-will ambassadors, helping to undo the cultural disaster of the Bush years. Dengue Fever unveils its hypnotic take on traditional Khmer pop/psych-rock before delighted club audiences, then ventures out into Phnom Penh record shops to track down vintage albums by the originators of Cambodian rock: Ros Serey Sothea, Sinn Sisamouth and Pen Ra, whose music (included on a piggybacked soundtrack CD here) was all but exterminated by the cruel Khmer Rouge regime of Pol Pot.

At last, you're free to enjoy that armchair adventure you couldn't have taken in the '70s, as described in the Dead Kennedys' ironically titled punk-rock anthem "Holiday In Cambodia."

Special Features: Bonus audio CD; film commentary from director John Pirozzi; band biography; and segments on the Cambodian Water Festival, the Cambodian Coconut Dance and Cambodia's Master Musicians.