Madonna’s New French Accent

Meet Madonna’s new man.

Not Guy Ritchie, the English film director with whom she’s having her second child, but Mirwais, a Paris-based musician with whom she’s producing much of the music for her next album.

Ritchie was introduced to the singer by Sting and his wife, Trudie Styler. Mirwais, who goes by just the one name, was more of a blind date.

The 39-year-old, formerly of the French group Taxi Girl, contacted Madonna’s Maverick Records late last year looking to get signed as an artist, not to produce the star.

“He sent a demo tape to Maverick with four tracks,” says Caresse Norman, Madonna’s manager. “Madonna heard it and went insane. Two weeks later they were in the studio together.”

This is not a repudiation of William Orbit, who co-produced most of 1998’s electronica-infused “Ray of Light” and last year’s “Austin Powers” single “Beautiful Stranger.” Orbit returned to do three songs on the new album but has also been focusing on several other projects, including his own recent “Pieces in a Modern Style” album of electronic interpretations of classical pieces. And Madonna, Norman notes, has never been one to sit still stylistically.

“This is taking ‘Ray of Light’ to the next level,” Norman says. “It’s not as electronic. It’s funky, with a pop edge to it. I have heard most of it a lot, and it’s something I never get sick of. And there’s one song that brings me to tears.”

How much does Madonna like Mirwais? In addition to hiring him to produce, she signed him as an artist to Maverick and will also share a song with him. It will be on both Madonna’s album and his debut, which will be released April 18 outside North America and then here, after the expected late September release of the Madonna set.

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MADONNA THE YENTA: When not finding partners for herself, Madonna seems to have a knack for matchmaking. Her latest move was to hook up k.d. lang with Damian LeGassick, introducing the two at a party last year. A protege of Orbit, LeGassick has co-produced “Invincible Summer,” lang’s first album since 1997’s “Drag,” due June 21.

A new producer isn’t the only change for lang that’s reflected in the album. The Canadian singer, burned out after her last tour in 1998, packed up from her farm north of the border and relocated to Southern California.

Warner Bros. Records publicist Liz Rosenberg reports that lang found herself inspired by the climate and summer vibes, and in place of her dark-hued “torch ‘n’ twang” sound has concocted a bright blend inspired by listening to the Mamas & the Papas, surf music and Brazilian sounds (beach music from the Southern hemisphere).

The title comes from an entirely different cultural source, though: the line “In the depths of winter I finally learned that within me lies an invincible summer,” written by French writer-philosopher Albert Camus.

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HART OF THE MATTER: Former Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart has revisited that venerable band’s songs since leader Jerry Garcia died in August 1995. Hart was part of the Other Ones, the group featuring Dead survivors that headlined the 1998 Furthur Festival. Yet when he attempted to do some Dead material recently in rehearsal with his new Mickey Hart Band, he was overcome.

“When I started doing that a few weeks ago, it was too emotional for me to get through them,” says Hart. “I’m singing a lot of them now myself and reworking them in a different frame than the Other Ones, which played more in the space of the originals. It’s more personal, especially when I’m singing the songs.”

Hart has anchored his own ensembles before, with the global-fusion Mystery Box on the 1996 Furthur tour and a percussion group on the next year’s edition. But the new band is the first with Hart truly as a full-fledged frontman. In Dead fashion, the group is touring to work out new material on the road before recording anything.

The lineup mixes Hart’s background in rock and the passion for world beats that he’s pursued as a musician, author and, in recent years, archivist and consultant with the Library of Congress.

“Half the band has that strong Afro-Cuban hit, and the other half is rock ‘n’ roll,” he says.

On the Library of Congress front, Hart has been spending a lot of time culling through archival recordings to help oversee digital transfers of music from all over the globe, with some starting to be made available for listening and download via the Internet. His initial efforts can be found in the American Folk Life section of the library’s Web site, https://www.loc.gov.

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YOU CAN’T FIRE ME . . . : Sharon Osbourne called to point out a misimpression given in a recent Pop Eye story about the Smashing Pumpkins’ contract situation. It stated that the Pumpkins had fired two managers in the past year, but Osbourne--the second of the two ex-managers referred to--was not fired. Rather, she quit, firing off the memorable comment at the time that she was resigning “due to illness--Billy Corgan is making me sick.” Osbourne, of course, continues to manage her husband, Ozzy, and is overseeing details of the coming Ozzfest concert tour, which has risen to the top of the heap of summer festival treks.