The Ten Top Global Releases of This Past Year
Looking back on the musical landscape of international sounds that defied expectations. Presenting a selection of ten remarkable albums that defined the year in music.
Number Ten: The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on repetitive percussion might not seem the most approachable musical proposition. However, Indian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar transforms this persistent pulse into a strangely alluring album. Guiding an trio of three drummers, Korwar creates a dense percussive dialect across the record's ten parts. His composition draws from Steve Reich's phasing motifs alongside classical Indian rhythmic patterns, everything tethered in the repetition of a persistent, driving motif. The longer one listens, this refrain evokes the ceremonial rhythm of ritual music, pulling the listener further into Korwar's distinctive percussive realm.
Number Nine: The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Coming off an eight-year break, Arab singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a mournful collection of songs. She expands on the Arabic-sung, dub-influenced style that made her a staple in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the nineties. Hamdan's voice is gentle and introspective, singing tender melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rolling trip-hop beat of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a quivering, yearning vibrato over Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and skittering electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is sparse and understated, yet this austerity offers the ideal canvas for Hamdan's emotive compositions to resonate. This is a record truly deserving of the long anticipation.
8. The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico producer Debit specializes in uncanny reinterpretations of traditional music. For her latest release, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected version of the rhythmic Latin American dance music genre. Debit decelerates this sound even further, filtering its signature synths and off-beat rhythm via sheets of murk and static to create a novel, menacing groove. Sometimes ambient and discomfiting, Debit transforms the joyous party music of cumbia into a lasting, ghostly echo.
Number Seven: DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sheer intensity is the key term for the records of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a cacophony of alarms, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics over the enduring Brazilian genre of baile funk. This emulates the propulsive sound of neighborhood block parties. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the intensity, throwing in everything from driving techno rhythms to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a notably frenetic and overwhelmingly noisy forty-minute sonic journey. Submit to the noise and Vieira's brash productions become unexpectedly exhilarating.
Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a rediscovered masterpiece. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an strikingly compelling combination of the synthetic sound of electronic keyboards and drum machines with her fluid classical Indian vocal technique. Electronic percussion mimics the undulating tones of the tabla, while synthesiser melody doubles the traditional sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, Latin-inflected grooves comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya boasts a up-tempo walking disco bassline. It's a dancefloor fusion created over a decade before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
5. Enji – Resonance
From Mongolia singer Enji's soft fourth album, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-inflected sound to present some of her most diverse music to date. Stepping outside her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces veer from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodies of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a sprightly, funk-inflected cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a live band rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains intimate, inviting the listener into the tender soundscape of her singular voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – Yarın Yoksa
Inspired by the 60s heritage of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's new album with her band Grup Şimşek fuses the electric jangle of the electrified saz with woozy keyboard and R&B-inflected lines. It's a retro-70s aesthetic anchored in Yıldırım's powerful falsetto and influenced by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated aesthetic. Yet, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group reaches lively new territory. They craft slinking, slow-burning grooves and lifting vocals that give a new, quirky twist to the Turkish psych sound.
3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Gregorian chants, Eastern European folk melodies and symphonic arrangements merge on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary fourth album. Arranging music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett traverse a vast range including the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated reggaeton-inspired beats of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim
