Our 10 Finest Worldwide Releases of This Past Year
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the global releases that defied expectations. We explore ten exceptional albums that defined the year in music.
10. The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
A continuous, 40-minute suite of cyclical drumming might not seem the most accessible musical proposition. However, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar transforms this persistent pulse into a strangely alluring work. Directing an group of three drummers, Korwar creates a intricate percussive dialect throughout the record's 10 movements. The album draws from Steve Reich's phasing motifs combined with traditional Indian musical phrasing, all anchored in the repetition of a continual, thrumming motif. As the album progresses, this refrain evokes the ceremonial rhythm of devotional music, drawing the listener further into Korwar's singular percussive realm.
Number Nine: The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
Coming off an long absence, Lebanese vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan returns with a melancholy set of songs. She expands on the Arabic-sung, dub-influenced aesthetic that cemented her status in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is quiet and introspective, singing delicate melodies atop the bowing strings 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 wavering, longing vocal technique against electronic lines with North African flavors and rattling electronic percussion. The production is lean and understated, yet this minimalism creates the perfect setting for Hamdan's deeply felt lyricism to take center stage. The album proves to be truly deserving of the wait.
8. The Mexican Producer Debit – Desaceleradas
From Mexico producer Debit excels at haunting reimaginings of archival audio. On her new album, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby take of the shuffling Latin American musical style. Debit decelerates this sound to a near-halt, filtering its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm via veils of distortion and hiss to produce a novel, sinister rhythm. Sometimes ambient and discomfiting, Debit morphs the exuberant party music of cumbia into a lasting, ethereal afterimage.
Number Seven: DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sheer intensity is the defining principle for the output of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a cacophony of sirens, explosive bass tones and shouted lyrics on top of the classic Brazilian genre of baile funk. This captures the propulsive sound of favela street parties. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the energy, incorporating everything from driving techno rhythms to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a especially frenetic and deafeningly intense 40-minute sonic journey. Submit to the cacophony and Vieira's brash productions become unexpectedly exhilarating.
Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a rediscovered treasure. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an unusually engaging blend of the sharp sound of 1980s synthesisers and programmed drums with her ornate Indian classical singing style. Electronic percussion mirrors the undulating tones of the traditional drums, while synth lines parallels the classic sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Elsewhere, Latin-inflected grooves is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a driving disco bass groove. It's a club-ready hybrid pioneered over a decade before the Asian Underground explosion.
Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance
From Mongolia vocalist Enji's gentle 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 11 tracks veer from the soft jazz-pop melodics of downtempo number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a sprightly, funk-inflected cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a full backing band rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains intimate, pulling the listener into the warm soundscape of her singular voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – Yarın Yoksa
Inspired by the psychedelic tradition of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's new album alongside her group merges the metallic twang of the amplified traditional lute with drifting keyboard and R&B-inflected lines. It's a retro-70s aesthetic rooted in Yıldırım's commanding high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape aesthetic. However, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group ventures into lively new territory. They develop sinuous, slow-burning grooves and powerful vocals that give a new, quirky twist to the Turkish psych sound.
3. Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Gregorian chants, Czech harpsichord folksong and orchestral strings merge on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary fourth album. Orchestrating music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett traverse everything from the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic reggaeton-inspired beats of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim
