Various Artists

Mention Cambodia and the killing fields of the country’s Communist regime still come to mind. But since the toppling of the Khmer Rouge and, later, the restoration of a constitutional monarchy, Cambodians have taken steps to reclaim their culture from the devastation wrought by Pol Pot, one of the 20th century’s most sinister dictators.

Singer and writer Chhom Nimol has played a role in Cambodia’s reawakening with her East Asian-accented rock band, Dengue Fever. With Electric Cambodia, the band serves as curator rather than performer, unearthing and presenting 14 tracks recorded by Cambodian rock bands during the 1960s and early ’70s, before Pol Pot seized the country and sent nearly a quarter of its people, including many of the musicians heard on ElectricCambodia, to their death. Some of the bands represented on this collection echo such familiar and diverse influences as Santana and Sonny and Cher. But most of the music suggests psychedelic-tinged American garage rock, overheard on tinny transistor radios, infused with butterfly vocal melodies rooted in Indo-Chinese tradition.

Electric Cambodia represents a lost footnote in rock history, a fascinating adaptation of American music to a distinct local setting.