This Ten Best Global Albums of This Past Year
Looking back on the musical landscape of international sounds that pushed boundaries. Presenting a selection of ten remarkable albums that defined the year in music.
Number Ten: The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of cyclical percussion might not seem the easiest listening experience. Yet, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar converts this persistent pulse into a hypnotically captivating piece. Guiding an trio of three drummers, Korwar crafts a intricate percussive vocabulary over the record's 10 movements. The album draws from the phasing techniques of Steve Reich alongside Indian classical phrasing, everything tethered in the recurrence of a continual, thrumming motif. Over its duration, this refrain starts to mirror the ceremonial rhythm of ritual music, drawing the listener further into Korwar's unique percussive universe.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
Coming off an long absence, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan returns with a mournful album of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-sung, dub-tinged style that made her a staple in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the nineties. Hamdan's vocal delivery is soft and introspective, singing tender melodies over the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop beat of Vows. During more energetic moments such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a quivering, longing vocal technique against electronic lines with North African flavors and rattling electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is lean and restrained, yet this simplicity creates the ideal setting for Hamdan's emotive songwriting to shine through. It is well worth the wait.
Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Desaceleradas
Mexican electronic artist Debit excels at uncanny reimaginings of traditional music. On her new album, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dub-inflected version of the rhythmic Latin American dance genre. Debit decelerates this sound even further, processing its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm through sheets of sludge and static to create a novel, sinister rhythm. Sometimes atmospheric and uneasy, Debit converts the exuberant party music of cumbia into a enduring, ethereal afterimage.
Number Seven: The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Maximalism is the operative word for the music of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a cacophony of sirens, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics over the longstanding Brazilian genre of baile funk. This emulates the propulsive sound of urban celebrations. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the energy, adding everything from techno kick drums to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a notably frenetic and overwhelmingly noisy forty-minute sonic journey. Give in to the noise and Vieira's brash productions become oddly exhilarating.
6. Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release of disco beats and Punjabi folk melodies is a rediscovered treasure. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an unusually engaging fusion of the sharp sound of 1980s synthesisers and drum machines with her fluid classical Indian singing style. Electronic percussion mirrors the wavelike tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody parallels the classic sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, bossa nova rhythm takes center stage on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a fast-paced disco bass groove. It's a club-ready hybrid delivered more than ten years before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
5. Enji – Sonor
From Mongolia vocalist Enji's gentle fourth album, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-influenced sound to present some of her broadest music so far. Stepping outside her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs travel from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodics of downtempo number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-tinged cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Showcasing a full backing band rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay close, inviting the listener into the gentle soundscape of her unique voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – Yarın Yoksa
Channeling the psychedelic tradition of Anatolian rock pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's new album with her band Grup Şimşek fuses the distinctive buzz of the electrified saz with dreamy keyboard and soulful tunes. It's a 1970s throwback sound grounded in Yıldırım's powerful high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape aesthetic. Yet, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group ventures into lively new territory. They develop slinking, downtempo grooves and lifting vocals that lend a fresh, quirky interpretation to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
3. Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Catholic requiem mass music, Eastern European folk melodies and symphonic arrangements merge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's stunning fourth album. Arranging music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett explore everything from the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated reggaeton-inspired beats of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim
