BY JENNIFER CHANCELLOR

World Scene Writer

It makes music that evokes images of dusty American GIs dancing to tinny hand radios, of all-American surfers in board shorts, of river trips through light-dappled jungles. L.A. pop act Dengue Fever also conjures the macabre gut-wrench of war, of death, of creepy-crawlers and of darkness.

Indeed, Dengue Fever dances happily on a stretched filament of foreboding.

Keyboardist Ethan Holtzman describes his band as “Cambodian psychedelic pop.” It mixes surf rock with Moog synthesizers, trippy delays, electric guitar, ‘60s-style organs, electric bass, drums, trumpet and saxophone. But the most vital element is singer Chhom Nimol’s voice, said Holtzman.

A Cambodian pop star in her own right, she sings in her native language of Khmer and also in English. It’s hauntingly feverish, dramatic and bold.

“Her voice really makes people get emotional,” said Holtzman in a recent telephone interview with the Tulsa World. “But there’s something vaguely familiar about it all once it’s all put together. It’s original, but people relate to it. I see people’s eyes tear up when we play, and especially when she sings. It’s just amazing.”

A little more than four years ago, the brothers searched Cambodian restaurants and nightclubs all over Los Angeles and Long Beach, Calif., before they found Nimol.

“We asked the Cambodian community. We went into their clubs. We wanted the real deal,” said Holtzsman.

They stopped into the Short Stop, among other places. Then the Dragon House. They started interviewing singers ... and then they found her.

“Her voice filled the room. Zac and I wanted her,” he said, then laughed at his voice inflection. “About eight trips later, she finally agreed to give us a chance. Four years later, here we are.”

The band recently released a soundtrack to the documentary “Sleepwalking Through the Mekong,” which chronicles the journey the band took to Nimol’s native Cambodia during the 2005 Water Festival. The band’s performances there marked the first time a Western band had performed classic 1960s and ’70s Cambodian rock ‘n’ roll in the country where it was created and nearly erased from existence by the brutal Pol Pot regime.

“All of these things are crazy things for an L.A. pop band to do,” said Holtzman. “But it’s just who we are.”

Holtzman spent six months traveling Southeast Asia in 1997 and 1998 backpacking.

“The music I heard there was so unique. I fell in love with the ‘Americanized’ Cambodian pop music,” he said. “I bought as much as I could carry back with me, and that’s pretty much where Dengue Fever started.”

When he returned to the states, he learned that his brother, guitarist Zac, had made the same discovery while living in San Francisco.

“It was so random a discovery for both of us that we decided to do something with it,” said Holtzman.

The band recruited horn player David Ralicke, who had toured with Beck and Ozomatli. It was rounded out with the powerful voice of Nimol — who sang regularly for the king and queen of Cambodia — and Senon Williams on bass and Paul Smith on drums.

“L.A.’s a weird city. We get a good response there, but we get a better response in random cities we’d never expect, like Instanbul ... and San Francisco.”

But that won’t stop the band from playing a hometown show at the famed Hollywood Bowl with Grace Jones later this year, he said.

The band plans a European tour later this summer, and enjoys festivals. The best thing about Dfest? A new audience.

“They’re gonna see that we’re not afraid to play anything,” said Holtzman. “They’ll see that we love to play music, that we will bring all sorts of music styles to the stage.”