The Southeast Asian Studies program will be sponsoring a night of Cambodian pop Saturday, with Los Angeles-based Dengue Fever in the center of the spotlight.

The free event, set to take place at Templeton-Blackburn Memorial Auditorium, will douse the audience with the jangly, ‘60s-influenced psychedelic pop under a bed of chillingly soulful duet vocals by Cambodia native Chhom Nimol and founder Zac Holtzman.

Due to conflicting time zones, bassist Senon Williams told the tale of Dengue Fever’s beginnings in an e-mail conversation. The group wanted to versify themselves from the current Southern California music scene in 2001. Around that time, Holtzman’s brother and organist, Ethan, went backpacking in Southeast Asia. A disease and a trip to Phnom Penh treatment center sprouted from the experience and rooted itself into the band’s aesthetics: the band’s name and sound.

“Ethan was traveling in Cambodia when his friend came down with Dengue,” Williams said. “His pal was in the cab suffering, and each time Ethan would reach around and poke through to see how his friend was doing, he heard this amazing music: The driver was playing ‘60s Cambodian psychedelic.”

Once the Holtzman brothers and company, also including drummer Paul Smith and David Ralicke on brass saxophone, discovered and added Nimol as the band’s final ingredient, the later-named Dengue Fever tuned into the Polar Regions for the ethereal sound that shot the band to the top of world music charts.

Their latest release, Venus on Earth, was chosen as one of the best world music records of 2008 by the iTunes store. The album also scored prominently on Billboard, reaching #32 Heatseeker and #3 World Album earlier that year.

The Cambodian pop sound might spark curiosity upon first mention, but the sound of the East versus the West has a slight variation.

Williams differentiated the two by explaining that Cambodian pop is “heavily drenched in Cambodian melodies that derive from microtonal scales, from instruments that have no frets and can bend between notes.”

On the general sound of pop, Zac Holtzman stressed emphasis on chorus structure.

“Pop music tends to have super hooky chorus or guitar parts,” Holtzman said. “It seems like nowadays pop songs rub the chorus in the listeners’ faces way too many times.”

It is safe to say that the Dengue Fever live experience isn’t chalked in the repetitive “super hooky chorus” parts, but more so a slightly impromptu “open up” direction of which Williams prides in the band.

“Our horn player [David Ralicke] comes from a strong jazz background; he never plays anything twice,” said Williams. “It got me thinking, ‘If he can do that on the horns why can’t I do it on bass?’ We leave sections of the song open so we can experiment and be in the moment.”

The moment is special regardless of size and crowd. Williams loves the small dives and huge stadiums because each show is never the same.

“There is an intimacy in small clubs where a single person in the crowd can change my performance, and on the flip side is the huge buzz I get when there’s an audience of thousands,” he said.

Ohio University’s Memorial Auditorium falls in the middle. From 7:30 until 10:30 p.m., you can help enrich the band’s experience for no extra charge.