''Neung Phak is a delicious Lao dish containing steamed chicken, coconut milk, and banana leaves, but is also the tasty and exotic alter ego of Bay Area noise wizards Mono Pause, who in turn share members with absurdist cut and paste legends Negativland. Neung Phak's bedazzling debut, recorded with chanteuse Diana Hayes, is an almost incomprehensibly funky mish-mash of Southeast Asian pop and traditional melodies, served up spicy-hot, East Oakland style. This is what you could be listening to when you move into that cheap apartment overlooking the Chao Phraya River: some roots 'Molarm beat' from the Lao countryside, creamy Khmer ballads and Cambodian Rock, with a dash of Bangkok big city pop. Dig this template of tropical seduction, from rural to urban, through thick sewage and pristine rice paddies, side-steppin' the sex tourist industry just enough to make this disc legal.''
(mono pause)
s.