For fans of: Undiscovered Sounds of the Sixties
What they're saying: The Endless Crate blog describes the Magical Nights collection as so: “Painstakingly compiled by Tâm’s daughter, Hannah Hà, and a crew of musical historians and record collectors, the compilation documents a vital period in Vietnamese pop culture, showcasing some of the first rock n’ roll songs ever recorded in Vietnam.” Here is AllMusic Tim Sendra on the sounds contained: “The guitars are spiky, the rhythm section ounces like a welterweight and the horns cut through the decades of static like a clarion call. Add Tâm to the mix and it's some crackling rock & roll fun” And here is _ at Pop Matters on the record’s success as a historic artifact: “Magical Nights is the sonic portrait of a paragon of rock ‘n’ roll, Tâm sounding like some kind of ideal of a youth music icon. The occasional tonal imperfection sounds perfectly organic, thrillingly real in marking some past time and place while still sounding musically relevant.”
What we say: The always exciting Sublime Frequencies label has had a long run of success bringing attention to excellent non-western sounds. This collection of “Action Music” (Vietnam’s big-beat vintage rock/soul sound) by Phương Tâm is no exception. Great stuff!