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Section: International

FRANCE: What do the members of Deep Forest do when they are not recording for themselves or touring? They record and play for other musicians. Last year the French duo of Eric Mouquet and Michel Sanchez collaborated with Peter Gabriel, performed a set with Youssou N'Dour during the Francofolie festival in the city of La Rochelle, and remixed songs for Cesaria Evora--the highly praised singer from the African island of Cape Verde. Now, Deep Forest is taking it one step further. Keyboard player Sanchez has just composed and produced an album in his home studio for Cameroon artist Wes Madiko. The album will be released this fall on Sony Music Entertainment's new Saint George imprint. Global Music Pulse had the chance to hear some tracks, and while it has some glimPaes of Deep Forest's work, Sanchez has melded his style with the brilliant singing of Madiko, whose voice has some of N'Dour's pitch and feel. The recording is in a free-style form, opening the door to improvisations. Madiko performs incantations in his native language, Bafou, with Sanchez building sounds around his voice. Madiko will be on the road this fall with Deep Forest in Australia, among other countries, doing the pygmy-tribal vocals that feature heavily in Deep Forest's work. Deep Forest will then go back to the studio to cut a new album, tentatively set for release next April. Mouquet and Sanchez have been traveling in Latin America these past months, and their new work should bear inspiration from this region.

ISRAEL: The revival of traditional Arabic and Turkish music in recent years by a new generation of educated musicians has attracted wide attention throughout the Arab world. Performances of this almost forgotten musical heritage require highly sophisticated techniques performed by individual virtuosos. An album titled "Oriental Art Music" by the Ziryab Trio, released in Israel on Nada Productions, provides an opportunity to indulge in the richness of this classical Eastern music. The trio, led by oud (Arabic lute) player Taiseer Ilias, was founded to give a deeper expression to oriental classical music and is the most recent to emerge and capture the imagination in this field. The other members of the trio are Naseen Dakwar on violin and Zohar Fresco on rig (tambourine), with the addition of Ema Nuel Mann on bass and Avraham Salman playing ganoun (Arabic zither) on some tracks. The live set features ensemble compositions by 19th- and 20th-century composers such as renowned Turkish composer Jamil Bey Tanburi (1871-1916) and the Egyptian Muhammad Abdelwahab (1902-1991). Genres like the samai--a Turkish rhythmic structure identical to the Western classical rondo in its format--and the classical Turkish longa seem to concentrate Ilias' vitality and physical strength. Another form of music found on the set is taqsim--a nonmetric instrumental improvisation. Despite the technical disadvantages of live recording, the trio's performance is expressive and startling.

U.K.: Yunchen Lhamo was given her name by a Buddhist holy man. It means "goddess of melody and song." She was born and raised in Tibet, and her spirituality and her voice were nurtured by her mother, grandmother, and aunt. She left her spiritual home seven years ago on a journey that has seen her perform her interpretations of Tibetan hymns for the United Nations and religious and world leaders, and she has attracted praise from a wide range of artists, including Crowded House's Tim Finn, who has written a song for her. The Australian Record Industry Assn. honored her set "Tibetan Prayer" as 1995's best world music album. Her first U.K. release, "Tibet Tibet" on RealWorld/Virgin, is a collection of Buddhist devotional and celebration songs, prayers, and chants delivered with haunting grace over a minimum of accompaniment, with the exception of the final song, "Gi Pai Pa Yul Chola," which uses a full orchestra. "Since I arrived in the West, I have seen so many people searching to understand the spirituality that exists within them," Lhamo says. "People need to find this within themselves, to tap into it whatever way they can, explore it, understand it, and make it strong. I hope in some way people will find this album inspirational in that sense." She recently gave acclaimed performances at the world music festival WOMAD in Reading, England, and at the Tibetan Day celebrations at London's Alexander Palace, which was attended by Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

AUSTRALIA: It is not surprising that the Divinyls aroused the interest of Charley Drayton, a member of Keith Richards' X-Pensive Winos and one-time contender for Bill Wyman's spot in the Rolling Stones. Their guitar pop has a similar irresistible swagger. Drayton initially collaborated on tracks for movie projects that included "Sleepless In Seattle" and "Super Mario Brothers" before producing the bulk of the Divinyls' new CD, "Underworld" (BMG). The multi-instrumentalist has also joined the Divinyls on current Australian dates. "Underworld" took four years to emerge, the delay due in part to their exit from Virgin and a protracted dispute last year between BMG and the band's manager at the time. "This is a hard business to be in," says singer Chrissie Amphlett, whose appearances onstage in a schoolgirl tunic date back to the early '80s, when she formed the act with guitarist Mark McEntee. "The trick is to make sure that all these feelings are directed into the music. As I grow older, I deal with my anger a lot better." Dates are planned in the U.S. and Europe, where the Divinyls have toured since 1983 and where a deal is being brokered for "Underworld."

PHOTOS (BLACK & WHITE): Stamps from Israel and U.K.

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By EMMANUEL LEGRAND, MUHAMMAD HIJAZI, JON CROUCH AND CHRISTIE ELIEZER

EDITED BY JOHN CROUCH