“Majoun.” Richard Horowitz and Sussan Deyhim. (Sony Classical)

Since 1981, keyboardist Richard Horowitz and vocalist Sussan Deyhim have been working in a unique collaboration, conjuring up ethereal musical moods that look toward the Arabic world--particularly Morocco--while using the wares of Western technology. It’s a mutually beneficial partnership, as Horowitz tinkers with timbre and machinery, and the Tehran-born Deyhim turns the protagonist role into lush, extended vocal patchwork, with the help of layered vocal samples.

Mostly, their work has been embraced in the new music and ambient subcultures and documented on smaller labels. “Majoun” (an Arabic word for “potion”), their debut on the Sony Classical label, benefits from a more lavish production and timeliness, in the wake of the fashionability of world music hybrids.

The contextual trick here, as before, is the way they find a happy, hypnotic blend of different cultural attitudes and sonic palettes--electronics meet real-time music making, West meets East, North America meets North Africa, and members of the Moroccan National Radio and Television Orchestra meet such fringe rock musicians from New York as Skip McDonald, Keith LeBlanc and Doug Wimbish.

At the heart of this simple, entrancing music is Deyhim’s otherworldly purr. She’s the sirocco siren of the new music scene.