By Graham Earnshaw

SHANGHAI, China, December 14, 1995 (Reuter) - China looks like it might finally make its mark on the world music charts, courtesy of an album called "Sister Drum" featuring Tibetan monks chanting Buddhist scriptures.

The album, written and produced by Chinese composer He Xuntian, is already the biggest-selling China-made album ever and the first with Chinese lyrics to gain international recognition.

It is reported to have sold more than 200,000 copies in Taiwan, is selling briskly in other markets around Asia and will be launched in the United States in January. The "Sister Drum" music video has been heavily played on Asian music TV stations.

The style of music on "Sister Drum" is similar to New Age but it's not background music. Dominating the album are the strong, high vocals of Zhu Zheqin, a female singer from southern China who is being compared to Icelandic pop star Bjork.

He Xuntian, sitting in his tiny office in the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, is both pleased and perplexed by this sudden success.

"Sales are incredible," he said. "They told me 6,000 copies were sold on its first day of release in Paris last month. I'm just amazed that so many people in so many countries are interested in Sister Drum."

He was born and raised in Sichuan province in western China on the borders with Tibet and has been writing progressive classical music for most of his career. He started putting "Sister Drum" together soon after he moved to Shanghai in 1992.

"Twenty years ago I filled three exercise books with transcriptions of Tibetan music but I didn't do anything with them until now.

"The aim was to come up with something that hadn't been done before in the West with a Chinese voice. This is not opera, it's not Chinese, it's not pop," he said.

The songs, constructed on a computer music sequencer -- another first for China -- use many Tibetan sounds, including Buddhist monks chanting the scriptures. He recorded the chants on a trip to Tibet in 1993.

But he is keeping studiously away from the sensitive religious and political issues surrounding Tibet, the Himalayan kingdom controlled by Beijing since 1950, and is quick to point out that his is not a Tibetan musical work.

"Some people want to use this for political purposes but I'm only interested in the music itself," he said. "There are no Tibetan songs here but the Tibetan sounds opened up a window for me. Of course there are things in "Sister Drum" which relate to the spirit of Tibet but the spirit is the thing, not more superficial elements such as songs."

The tunes on "Sister Drum" have a dream-like quality about them and the singing, while in Chinese, is more akin to chanting - the sound is more important than the lyrics.

The singer, Zhu Zheqin, was clearly deeply affected by her work on the album. She changed her name for the project to Dadawa and wrote in the album liner notes:

"Tibet is the inspiration for our ideas. It is a contrast to the modern world. It is a magical mirror; we can discover our true selves through our reflection in the mirror."

The album has been compared to the work of the French New Age outfit Deep Forest and also to Enya and Bjork. But He said he had not been aiming to emulate anyone.

"I wanted to get as far away as possible from other types of music and styles, although of course all styles of music have basic elements in common. You can't get away from those 12 notes in the music scale," he said.

He has little time for either the fledgling rock music scene of Beijing ("they all sound like the same song to me") or for the easy-listening pop music that emanates from Taiwan and Hong Kong ("They're just copying Japanese or western styles").

Being the biggest selling album ever produced in China has made "Sister Drum" prey to the same problem many other music companies face in China -- piracy.

He said he was aware of four different pirated versions of the CD on sale in China but was relaxed about it.

"At least it means people like it, although it must be eating into the market. Anyway, it has no influence on the quality of the product being produced," he said.

He is still considering what to do next but says he plans to continue teaching composing at the Shanghai Music Conservatory.

He said his next album would also be a collaboration with Dadawa and would be related in some way to the feel of "Sister Drum."

"I haven't figured it out yet," he said. "But there's clearly lots to be done in this area."