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When I was in the Negev desert in southern Israel a couple of years ago, I heard a band playing a song using an Arabic violin called a rehab. It was a strange mix of Arabic and traditional Indian music, one that I'd never come across before: melodically very strong but using non-Western scales in a way that was new to me. The best song, I found out, was written by Shye Ben-Tzur, an Israeli musician who had been living in India until this year. I set out to discover more about him.

I’m always a little wary of rock bands half-heartedly dabbling in world music — itself a slightly greasy term — but there are exceptions. Damon Albarn is one: his work with musicians in Mali is something he’s clearly fully committed to. And I think Shye Ben-Tzur is another, which is why I’m so happy to be part of the band at his UK debut tomorrow at the Southbank Centre.

Indian music is a huge subject that I’ve only started to explore. During a two-month trip last year, I heard traditional classical work in Kerala, a Sufi festival in Rajasthan and so-called gypsy music in the north, which is where much of Shye’s influence seems to come from. Indian scales, or ragas, are so strange if you’re used to traditional Western harmonic ideas: concepts such as major and minor, or even chords, don’t apply any more, and the approach to melody and rhythm is totally unlike Western music.

Shye explained to me that when you listen closely you realise there’s also real tension in the improvised melodies — each new tone of the scale is revealed slowly, one note at a time, which despite its reputation for calm placidity can make the music tense and fraught.

Indian instruments fascinate me, tanpuras especially. You often see these long-necked, four-stringed instruments at the back of classical Indian groups. Supposedly they’re just drones to accompany singers but in fact they produce a compellingly complex wall of sound, with layer upon layer of drifting harmonics.

I’ve started using some of these instruments in my music because I can’t think of any other way, electronics included, of making such sounds.

Five Alchemy Festival highlights

When I tracked Shye down in Israel, I just wanted to ask him how he came to make music in that style. He told me he was a music student in Tel Aviv in the Nineties and first came across Indian traditional music at a concert by Indian musicians in Jerusalem. He dropped everything and moved to Rajasthan to study music, eventually settling in India and marrying into Sufism, a kind of mystical branch of Islam. This helps account for the curious hybrid nature of his music, in which intensely devotional Sufi poetry is sung mostly in Hebrew by Indian singers (though some songs are in Urdu and Hindi).

The tone is quite celebratory, more like gospel music than anything — except that it’s all done to a backing of Indian harmoniums and percussion.

Shye hasn’t often played outside India. His concert tomorrow is part of the Southbank’s Alchemy festival, which celebrates culture from the Indian subcontinent, including design, dance and stand-up as well as music. I’ll be playing guitar for some of the songs. I’ve never performed in this genre before and I certainly don’t plan on anything soloistic: I just want to be part of the band and play a supportive role, though I’m not sure exactly what that will be. It could be based around the complex drones of the tanpura, or the rhythms of the dholak, a two-sided Indian drum. Whatever I do, I can’t rely on familiar things (to me) such as chord sequences or simple rhythms, and it’ll be a challenge to let go of all that.

I might also use an early French electronic instrument called the Ondes Martenot — it’s monophonic, so it could suit a style of music that isn’t given to standard harmonies.

Shye has invited a host of international musicians too, including two outstanding Rajasthani rhythm players from India’s Manganiar Gypsy community and two Sufi Qawwals from Amjer, near Jaipur, one of Sufism’s most important sites and the epicentre of its living music tradition. Then there will be three musicians from Israel: a cellist and percussionist from the wonderful band Yemen Blues and one of the country’s top drummers, Itamar Doari.

Shye's live shows are a real experience — a pure celebration of his faith and a great example of how more than one culture can work together to create great music.