The 10 Best Worldwide Releases of This Past Year
Looking back on the musical landscape of international sounds that defied expectations. We explore ten remarkable albums that shaped the year in music.
Number Ten: The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of cyclical drumming might not seem the most accessible listening experience. Yet, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar converts this insistent rhythm into a hypnotically captivating work. Directing an trio of three drummers, Korwar creates a dense percussive dialect throughout the record's ten parts. The work channels Steve Reich's phasing motifs alongside Indian classical phrasing, each grounded in the recurrence of a continual, pulsing motif. Over its duration, this refrain starts to mirror the ceremonial rhythm of devotional music, pulling the listener further into Korwar's distinctive percussive world.
9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
Following an hiatus of eight years, Arab singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan returns with a contemplative set of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-sung, dub-influenced sound that established her as a fixture in the Arab alternative scene since the nineties. Hamdan's voice is quiet and thoughtful, singing delicate melodies over the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop groove of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a wavering, longing vibrato over north African synth lines and rattling electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is sparse and subtle, yet this minimalism creates the ideal environment for Hamdan's emotive songwriting to resonate. This is a record truly deserving of the long anticipation.
Number Eight: Debit – Slowed Down
Mexican producer Debit has a knack for eerie reworkings of historical sounds. On her latest release, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dub-inflected take of the shuffling Latin American musical style. Debit decelerates this sound down to a crawl, processing its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm through layers of distortion and static to generate a novel, foreboding groove. Periodically atmospheric and discomfiting, Debit morphs the joyous party music of cumbia into a persistent, ghostly afterimage.
Number Seven: DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sensory overload is the defining principle for the music of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a tumult of alarms, explosive bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the longstanding Brazilian genre of baile funk. This emulates the energetic sound of favela street parties. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the ferocity, incorporating everything from four-on-the-floor techno beats to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly frenetic and deafeningly intense forty-minute sonic journey. Surrender to the noise and Vieira's bold productions become strangely freeing.
Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco beats and Punjabi folk melodies is a reissued masterpiece. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an strikingly compelling blend of the sharp sound of early synthesizers and programmed drums with her melismatic Indian classical singing style. Electronic percussion mimics the rolling tones of the tabla, while synth lines replicates the traditional sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Elsewhere, Latin-inflected grooves comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya boasts a driving funky bass rhythm. It's a party blend created over a decade before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
5. The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance
From Mongolia singer Enji's gentle latest record, Sonor, develops her jazz-inflected sound to deliver some of her most diverse music yet. Moving away from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks veer from the gentle 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 lively, funk-inflected cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a live band rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still intimate, pulling the listener into the gentle soundscape of her singular voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa
Inspired by the psychedelic tradition of Anatolian rock pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's new album alongside her group merges the electric jangle of the amplified traditional lute with woozy Mellotron and soulful tunes. It's a nostalgic vibe anchored in Yıldırım's powerful high register and influenced by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated sound. However, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group finds vibrant new territory. They create smooth, slow-burning grooves and soaring vocals that lend a novel, off-kilter twist to the Turkish psych sound.
3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Sacred music, Czech harpsichord folksong and orchestral strings merge on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's stunning latest work. Arranging music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett explore a vast range including the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated dembow rhythms of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim
