World Music's Next Big Beat

By Guy Garcia

DEEP FOREST IS THE PRODUCT OF a global village in which the natives are getting funky. On the opening, title track, misty clouds of synthesizer swirl around a percolating hip-hop rhythm as a woman's soothing warble rises over the high-tech groove. Mesmerized, one can almost understand the lyrics. Almost but not quite, because the vocalist is an African Pygmy from Ghana and she is singing in her native tongue. Suddenly, cultural borders blur. What kind of music is this anyway? And would anyone actually dance to it?

The answer to the latter question is yes. Already a hit in Australia, France and Britain, Deep Forest has entered the dance and modern-rock charts in the U.S., where it was released last year. Sales are surging, thanks to a lyrical MTV clip by video auteur Tarsem and a Grammy nomination for Best World Music Album.

Deep Forest was conceived by Michel Sanchez and Eric Mouquet, two French musicians who blended New Age electronics with UNESCO field recordings of music from Zaire, the Solomon Islands, Burundi, Tibesti and the Sahel.

A percentage of the profits from sales of Deep Forest will go to the Pygmy Fund, a California-based organization committed to helping the natives of central Africa cope with environmental threats to their homeland. But for Sanchez and Mouquet, the most important purpose of the record is to express their own fascination with the Pygmies -- and open the world's ears to the exquisite sound of a quickly vanishing culture. As Mouquet notes, "It's not very often you can hear a Pygmy singing on the radio."