The underground club scene in Phnom Penh…

… we certainly don’t conform to the standard rules of a club night

Coming very much from the leftfield art and music scene, Invisible Agent’s Swagger night has been creating quite the stir amongst Phnom Penh’s avant garde with its combination of cutting edge sounds, live visuals and even live painting.

I spoke to main man Warren about his history and views on the current scene

Tell me about Invisible Agent (the record label behind the Swagger night)

Invisible Agent was started in 2000 and we released our first 12″ Vinyl in January 2004.

We release high quality electronic music from established artists around the world. We also work with a range of artists, poets, classically trained composers, painters, DJs and Visual artists and always try to create something innovate and unique.

We don’t put out as much physical format releases these days as we have a massive digital footprint using a digital distribution system. We strongly support the Netlabel and Creative Commons scenes, most of our back catalogue is available for free.

What do you think of the current Phnom Penh club scene?

It certainly needs some more nurturing, but there are encouraging signs and hopefully we’ll see more Cambodian producers and artists getting involved.

How would you describe a typical Invisible Agent night?

Sometimes it’s completely different to what the record label is all about. You will hear a multitude of genres, we certainly don’t conform to the standard rules of a club night.

We have live visuals, live painting, we fairly adventurous with our music selections. We’ve probably never played the same genre of music for more than an hour. Because the folks involved are from varied backgrounds the music is really diverse, but almost always dance floor friendly.

Beautiful off-kilter electronica. We released this on vinyl before dubstep or the bass music scene exploded.

Any other thoughts about the Phnom Penh club scene, past and present?

I’ve lived in Phnom Penh for 4 years. Before Meta House, the club scene was almost non-existent. The future is looking bright and there’s a some really positive stuff happening across the board.

Future dates you will be playing?

We play the last Saturday of every month in Meta House. We have some album launches in the US and Ireland over the next few months.

Warren Daly, Alex Leonard, Hal Fx and Scott Bywater will be playing live and fusing electronics, visuals, poetry and more in Java cafe in Phnom Penh during April 2013.

* This article originally appears on the Louder Than War blog