MIAMI (AP) -- Two members of one of Cuba's best-known music groups
                  have left their band and are seeking asylum in the United States.

                  Guitarist Jorge Luis Almarales and drummer Eugenio Doria Del Valle arrived
                  Thursday in the office of U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and announced they
                  wanted to defect.

                  They are members of Sintesis, a group acclaimed for its music, a blend of
                  electric rock, jazz and Afro-Cuban Santeria chants and drumming.

                  Sintesis has toured internationally and its recordings are available in the United
                  States. The band was in California on a U.S. tour.

                  But the two musicians hopped on a bus and headed for South Florida to meet
                  awaiting relatives, stopping for a night in an Orlando shelter because of
                  Hurricane Floyd,

                  Almarales, who left his pregnant wife behind in Cuba, said he and Del Valle
                  felt stifled politically and professionally in the communist island. Almarales said
                  he and his co-defector felt they were poorly paid and unable to strike out on
                  their own musically.

                  "You can't live in oppression," Almarales, 32, said from his uncle's house in
                  Hollywood. "I had to find a better life, to find my own future as a guitarist.
                  Life is not eternal, and you can't be suffering all the time."

                  Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican, labeled the defections a symptom of the
                  Cuban government's political bankruptcy. She said the unannounced arrival of
                  defectors in her office is not uncommon.

                  "Not a week goes by where somebody doesn't come seeking political asylum,
                  because they are lacking freedom in Cuba, lacking academic opportunities,
                  musical opportunities," she said. "Some put it more politically than others, but it
                  is an absolute rejection of a failed communist regime."

                  Ros-Lehtinen said her aides had contacted the U.S. Immigration and
                  Naturalization Service for instructions on what to do about the defectors, but
                  doesn't expect they will encounter any legal problems. They were both in the
                  country legally, with visas.

                  Almarales has been with Sintesis five years. Del Valle, 22, joined about three
                  years ago, he said. One of the group's founding members, Mike Porcel, has
                  been living in Miami since the 1980s.

                  This week, another Cuban music group, Los Van Van, caused a stir in
                  Miami's Cuban exile community. Many exiles did not want the band playing in
                  South Florida. Los Van were set to perform in Miami next month.

                  After holding talks with Miami officials, the band announced a tentative
                  rescheduling for Oct. 11.