When a musician says they took inspiration from an overseas journey, it usually means they hit the tourist spots, consumed a lot of foreign drugs and alcohol, and bought a second-hand instrument from a market to awkwardly shoehorn into a bonus track on their next album.

When Shannon Kennedy - better known as Ozi Batla, of influential Aussie hip-hop outfit The Herd - says a trip to Cambodia influenced the latest album from his side-project Astronomy Class, he means it.

Mekong Delta Sunrise is the album, Astronomy Class's third, sprouted from seeds sown during a trip to the Asian nation. Kennedy, and producers Chasm and Sir Robbo, are the men behind it.

Rock'n'roll records from 1950s and '60s Cambodia are the roots of the album, samples of stirring Oriental instrumentation and vocals colliding with modern hip-hop percussion. Kennedy even stepped outside his own mind when penning his razor-sharp rhymes, writing from the perspective of a mid-century Cambodian.

"When I started writing, it was clear I couldn't just do Aussie raps over those samples. I started writing it as a concept album of Cambodian history and music," Kennedy said.

"I was really conscious of making the album and lyrics really sensitive to the Cambodian people, and not imposing my ideas on it."

He gave the example of a tribute written to former Cambodian leader Norodom Sihanouk, who died in 2012.

While he was a controversial figure in world politics - he pledged support to North Vietnam and North Korea during the Vietnam War, which initiated a revolt leading to civil war in Cambodia and his later exile - he was much loved in his native country.

"He was a very controversial character, but we took it from the position of his people, who turned out in the millions for his funeral procession," Kennedy said, practically gushing forth on Cambodian culture and history. This is no token "overseas experience" - the album is Cambodia, Cambodia is the album.

"This sort of music is a sense of pride for Cambodians. They have a lot of shame in their recent past, but the universal joyous thing is that era of music."

The samples featured on the album are noteworthy for more reasons than the fact they are old and virtually unheard by Western ears.

"Phnom Penh was one of the most vibrant cities in the world in the 1960s, and a real feedback loop musically.

"The king was a big supporter of the arts, he funded a lot of early stars to come from villages to record in the capital. At the same time, US soldiers were in Vietnam, and Cambodians could pick up the military radio, so were listening to 1960s rock and psych, and trying to play it," he said.

"Then the Khmer Rouge tried to destroy everything, killed and imprisoned the artists, so only a handful of vinyl copies of these are left in the world. The sonic quality is pretty rough, but there's so much vibe in it."

From his new home in Austinmer, Kennedy is currently kicking back and starting a family. He calls the Illawarra's northern suburbs "the perfect environment" for creativity, and has already woven himself into the area's artistic community. He'll have a chance to perform for his new friends on June 6, when Astronomy Class perform at Anita's Theatre in Thirroul.