The 10 Finest Worldwide Releases of This Past Year
The past twelve months have offered a rich tapestry of worldwide music that expanded horizons. We explore ten remarkable albums that defined the year in music.
Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
A continuous, 40-minute suite of repetitive percussion might not seem the most approachable musical proposition. Yet, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar transforms this persistent pulse into a strangely alluring piece. Guiding an group of three drummers, Korwar crafts a dense percussive dialect across the record's ten parts. The work channels Steve Reich's phasing motifs alongside Indian classical phrasing, all anchored in the repetition of a persistent, thrumming figure. As the album progresses, this refrain evokes the trance-inducing cycles of ceremonial music, drawing the listener further into Korwar's distinctive percussive world.
9. The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
Coming off an long absence, Lebanese vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a melancholy album of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-language, dub-influenced aesthetic that established her as a fixture in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is quiet and ruminative, delivering tender melodies atop the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop groove of Vows. During more energetic moments such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a quivering, longing vocal technique against north African synth lines and rattling electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is minimal and restrained, yet this simplicity offers the ideal environment for Hamdan's expressive lyricism to shine through. It is that justifies the wait.
8. The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico electronic artist Debit has a knack for haunting reimaginings of archival audio. On her new album, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dubby interpretation of the shuffling Latin American musical style. Debit decelerates this sound even further, running its signature synths and syncopated rhythm via layers of sludge and hiss to create a new, sinister beat. Sometimes ambient and discomfiting, Debit morphs the celebratory party music of cumbia into a persistent, ethereal afterimage.
Number Seven: The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sensory overload is the defining principle for the music of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a tumult of alarms, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the longstanding Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This recreates the driving sound of neighborhood block parties. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the ferocity, incorporating everything from four-on-the-floor techno beats to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a notably hyperactive and deafeningly intense 40-minute listening experience. Surrender to the cacophony and Vieira's brash productions become oddly liberating.
6. The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release of disco music and Punjabi folk melodies is a newly appreciated gem. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an unusually captivating fusion of the metallic sound of early synthesizers and programmed drums with her ornate Indian classical singing style. Electronic percussion echoes the wavelike tones of the traditional drums, while synth lines doubles the traditional sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Elsewhere, bossa nova rhythm takes center stage on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a up-tempo walking disco bassline. It's a party blend pioneered over a decade before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor
Mongolian singer Enji's delicate fourth album, Sonor, develops her jazz-inflected sound to offer some of her most diverse music yet. Moving away from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks travel from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodies of downtempo number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a energetic, funk-inflected cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a ensemble rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains close, drawing the listener into the gentle soundscape of her distinctive voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – Yarın Yoksa
Inspired by the 1960s legacy of Anatolian rock pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work alongside her group fuses the electric jangle of the amplified traditional lute with woozy keyboard and classic soul melodies. It's a 1970s throwback sound grounded in Yıldırım's strong falsetto and influenced by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated aesthetic. Yet, on classic Turkish songs such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group reaches vibrant new territory. They develop slinking, slow-burning grooves and powerful vocals that give a novel, unconventional twist to the Turkish psych sound.
Number Three: Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Gregorian chants, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements all come together on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary fourth album. Arranging music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett traverse a vast range including the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic reggaeton-inspired beats of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim
