Terence Trent D'Arby will be "lending his vocal chords" to INXS for their upcoming show at the opening of Sydney Stadium in Australia on June 12, according to guitarist Tim Farris.| The performance is the first of two blips on the pop radar for D'Arby, as he's also putting the finishing touches on his first album in four years. "No one can ever take Michael Hutchence's place," D'Arby said in a letter to fans on the Web site of his new label, Glen Ballard's Java Records. "Although I am flattered by the rumors of my taking his place in INXS, they have no substance beyond that. Should they continue onwards I wish them the very best of musical magic and success." As for D'Arby's long-awaited fifth album, a Java source says The Solar Return of Terence Trent D'Arby: Confessions of a Powernoise Schizophonic is in the mixing stage. The source could not confirm a street date, but D'Arby's statement suggested a possible September release . . .

If you're not going to Europe or Australia this summer, you can forget about catching Garbage. According to Shirley Manson, as soon as the group wraps up its Australian tour on Oct. 16, bandmembers are heading back to the studio to work on a soundtrack project. While the usually loquacious bandmembers were mum on who the opus was for, they did say that they have been talking to some high profile directors -- including David Lynch, who invited them to his house for dinner when they were in Los Angeles. Manson did allow that she may have a role in an upcoming film -- but again stopped far short of spilling the beans. In other news, Garbage will be playing a show to mark the opening of the Scottish parliament on July 1. The band will play a huge outdoor festival at the historic Princes Street Gardens in Manson's native Edinburgh. Promoters Regular Music said, "The concept of the concert is to show the contrast between old traditional Scotland and young Scotland" . . .

Foreigner will be bearing gifts -- well, not the free kind -- when they join forces with fellow venerable arena rockers Journey for a summer tour. The group recently holed up in a Long Island home studio to re-record five classic tracks -- "Juke Box Hero," "Double Vision," "Waiting For a Girl Like You," "Dirty White Boy" and "Fool For You Anyway" -- in unplugged style for a limited-edition CD only available on tour beginning early July and through the group's official Web site (www.foreigneronline.com). The five thousand numbered limited edition Rough Diamonds #1 compact discs will feature autographs by frontman Lou Gramm and guitarist Mick Jones. The band is also in the process of recording a new studio album, expected early next year . . .

In the latest round of corporate scrambling to come up with a piracy-proof means of digital distribution of music over the Web, label giants Universal Music and BMG Entertainment have announced an alliance with AT&T and Japan's Matsushita Electric Industrial. The news comes less than a month after Universal announced a similar affiliation with California-based Intertrust Technologies. Multiple deals between record labels and technology companies are becoming more and more commonplace as the music industry struggles to find a way to adapt to -- and profit from -- the MP3 revolution . . .

ANDREW DANSBY, BLAIR FISCHER and JAAN UHELSZKI(May 27, 1999)