The French-based composer and record producer Hector Zazou was a pioneering figure in the popularisation of “world music”. In the early 1980s he was one of the first to experiment with fusing African music with Western rock and electronic forms, and the striking juxtaposition of traditional and modern became his trademark. He went on to mastermind numerous cross-cultural collaborations with musicians from around the globe, mixing traditional folk and tribal styles with pop, ambient, techno, avant-garde and even classical influences.

Born in pre-independence Algeria to a French father and a Spanish mother, he began recording in the mid-1970s, playing keyboards and violin with the chamber jazz ensemble ZNR. In 1983 he teamed up with the Congolese singer Bony Bikaye on the album Noir & Blanc, mixing synthesiser arrangements and ritualised tribal vocals to create a groundbreaking Afro-pop sound, two years before Paul Simon recorded Graceland. Several albums followed with Bikaye, including the extraordinary Reivax Au Bongo, which he described as a musical “photo-novel” set in the mythical kingdom of Bongo and which also included the voices of Bikaye’s Congolese compatriot, Kanda Bongo Man, alongside a trained operatic soprano.

Zazou’s own training in formal composition was evident in Geologies and Geographies, a brace of sophisticated orchestral suites recorded in 1989, which fused a string quartet with an electronic production. Equally striking was Sahara Blue (1992), an extraordinary tribute to Arthur Rimbaud, the Symbolist poet, that he composed, arranged and produced and which featured David Sylvian, Khaled and Gérard Depardieu among the guests.

Yet it was his fascination with world music that led to much of his most acclaimed work. In 1991 he visited Corsica to record the island’s ancient polyphonic vocal music for the album Les Nouvelles Polyphonies Corses.

Typically, however, to the traditional Corsican voices he added an eclectic global cast that included the African saxophonist Manu Dibango, Japan’s Ryuichi Sakamoto and former Velvet Underground star John Cale. The album achieved cult status among European world music fans, and suitably encouraged by its success three years later he left the warm waters of the Mediterranean and ventured north to record Songs From The Cold Seas (1994), a journey through Siberian shamanism, Scandinavian folk song, Japanese ballads and Icelandic mythology featuring an impressive array of female guest vocalists, including Björk, Siouxsie Sioux and Suzanne Vega.

In similar style, Lights In The Dark (1998) was an exploration of ancient sacred Celtic music, featuring traditional ethereal Irish voices and a gospel choir.

He also recorded with the minimalist composer Harold Budd, and produced the Uzbek singer Sevara Nazarkhan and Tibet’s Yungchen Lhamo for Peter Gabriel’s Real World label and was a member of the musical collective Slow Music.

Recent solo albums included 2003’s Strong Currents, which featured guest vocals from Jane Birkin, Lisa Germano and Laurie Anderson, and the heavily electronic L’Absence a year later. His latest work, In the House of Mirrors, is due to be released in late September and was recorded in Bombay with Indian classical musicians and a characteristically eclectic cast of other guests, ranging from the Galician piper Carlos Núñez to the Hungarian violinist Zoltan Lantos.

Hector Zazou, composer and producer, was born on July 11, 1948. He died on September 8, 2008, after a long illness, aged 60