Our Ten Greatest Global Albums of This Past Year
Looking back on the musical landscape of international sounds that expanded horizons. We explore ten exceptional albums that shaped the year in music.
10. Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
A continuous, 40-minute suite of repetitive percussion may not appear the most approachable listening experience. However, Indian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar turns this insistent rhythm into a hypnotically captivating piece. Directing an group of three drummers, Korwar creates a intricate percussive language across the record's ten parts. The work channels Steve Reich's phasing motifs combined with traditional Indian musical phrasing, everything tethered in the reiteration of a persistent, thrumming figure. As the album progresses, this refrain begins to emulate the ceremonial rhythm of devotional music, luring the listener deeper into Korwar's distinctive percussive realm.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Coming off an eight-year break, Lebanese vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan returns with a mournful set of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-language, dub-influenced style that made her a staple in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the nineties. Hamdan's vocal delivery is gentle and thoughtful, delivering tender melodies over the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop beat of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she adopts a quivering, yearning vibrato over electronic lines with North African flavors and skittering electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is minimal and understated, yet this minimalism offers the ideal environment for Hamdan's emotive compositions to shine through. The album proves to be that justifies the wait.
8. The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico electronic artist Debit specializes in uncanny reimaginings of archival audio. For her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dub-inflected interpretation of the rhythmic Latin American dance music genre. Debit slows this sound even further, running its signature synths and syncopated rhythm through veils of sludge and noise to create a novel, menacing rhythm. Periodically ambient and discomfiting, Debit transforms the joyous dancefloor sound of cumbia into a enduring, spectral echo.
7. DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sheer intensity is the defining principle for the music of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira piles a cacophony of sirens, explosive bass tones and shouted lyrics over the classic Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This recreates the driving sound of favela street parties. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the ferocity, adding everything from driving techno rhythms to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a notably frenetic and overwhelmingly noisy forty-minute listening experience. Surrender to the assault and Vieira's brash productions become oddly exhilarating.
6. The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco beats and traditional Punjabi tunes is a newly appreciated treasure. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an strikingly compelling blend of the metallic sound of electronic keyboards and drum machines with her fluid classical Indian vocal technique. Electronic percussion mimics the rolling tones of the tabla, while synthesiser melody replicates the traditional sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Elsewhere, bossa nova rhythm comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a up-tempo disco bass groove. It's a club-ready hybrid delivered more than ten years before the rise of Asian Underground music.
Number Five: Enji – Sonor
Mongolian singer Enji's soft latest record, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-inflected sound to present some of her most wide-ranging music yet. Departing from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces range from the gentle jazz-pop melodies of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-tinged cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a ensemble rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains personal, pulling the listener into the warm soundscape of her unique voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – Yarın Yoksa
Inspired by the 60s heritage of Turkish psychedelia established by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work with her band Grup Şimşek fuses the electric jangle of the amplified traditional lute with dreamy keyboard and R&B-inflected lines. It's a nostalgic vibe anchored in Yıldırım's powerful falsetto and shaped by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated aesthetic. However, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group finds dynamic new territory. They develop sinuous, slow-burning grooves and soaring vocals that lend a new, off-kilter spin to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
3. Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Gregorian chants, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings merge on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's stunning fourth album. Arranging music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through everything from the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic dembow rhythms of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim
