So much "world music" tries to prove something -- Buy this album and you'll save the rainforest! -- forgetting that the operative word is (italics)music(end italics). For the past 16 years, Dead Can Dance's Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard have been drawing from worldwide sounds to create their own unique brew of language, melody and magic.

Their latest work, "Spiritchaser," is born of rhythm, from the whirling bullroarer that opens "Nierika" to the hypnotic buzz that carries "Devorzhum." Perry and Gerrard wed Algonquin and Vodun chants with bongos and shakers in "Song of the Stars," and Japanese essences with humid, tropical nights on "Song of the Nile." The brief "Dedicace Outo" is pure percussive celebration.

Equally breathtaking is the reunion of Dead Can Dance's partners. In recent years the duo has taken to working from opposite ends of the globe, bringing a noticeable disparity to their work. On "Spiritchaser" they share tasks; Perry's raspy, Sinatra-on-barbituates vocals converse with Gerrard's sanguine alto on "The Snake and the Moon." Many tracks find the pair trading harmonies like old stories over the fire.

Perry takes the lead in "Song of the Dispossessed," the only English-language vocal on the album. Many of his earlier efforts have seemed hokey, but his sympathy for Mother Earth here speaks of sincerity: "The earth is our mother, she taught us to embrace the light/Now the Lord is Master, she suffers an eternal night." Likewise, Gerrard's voice is gorgeous, especially in "Indus" and the lulling "Devorzhum."

It seems impossible that two people could distill so much music into the eight cogent, concise songs on "Spiritchaser." The union of world rhythms and the reunion of Perry and Gerrard is refreshing in a time of ethnocentrism and individuality. Dead Can Dance's lesson, if any, is that borders, boundaries and barriers are meant to be traversed. Only when ethnic traditions are combined can true world music emerge.

This article was originally published in the San Francisco Chronicle.