Reviving a legend | Bangkok Post: Arts & Culture

WORLD BEAT

It's been a hectic year for local DJ and Zundrangma Records label owner Maft Sai. He's been on successful overseas tours to Europe and Japan with his partner DJ Chris Menist and the pair has put together two excellent internationally released compilations of Thai luk thung music, The Sound of Siam (Soundway, UK) and Thai? Dai! (Finders Keepers, UK). Never still for a moment, the duo's popular "Bangkok Paradise" night returns this month with a one-off concert by the legendary Wong Dontri Molam Theppabutr band to celebrate the event's third anniversary.

Poster for Theppabutr Molam Band concert. PHOTOS COURTESY THEPPABUTR SATIRODCHOMPU

Maft says he's been more focused on molam than luk thung in recent months, spurred on by signing a deal with the famous molam producer Theppabutr Satirodchompu to license molam tracks from his back catalogue. It's taken him several years to persuade Theppabutr to agree but the wait has been worth it. "At first, I liked the faster molam styles," he explained, "but then I heard some of the slower tunes while I was playing at a gig in Tokyo. The sound system was so good, you could hear all these subtle effects and sounds. So I found more of this kind of molam and played it at my shows along with reggae _ it gave me a new perspective and I started 'Isan Dancehall' (his current DJ night in Bangkok)."