Our Ten Top Global Albums of This Past Year
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the worldwide releases that expanded horizons. Here is a countdown of ten remarkable albums that defined the year in music.
10. Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of insistent drumming could sound like it isn't the easiest listening experience. However, Indian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar converts this insistent rhythm into a unexpectedly magnetic piece. Leading an trio of three drummers, Korwar develops a complex percussive dialect throughout the record's 10 movements. The work references Steve Reich's phasing motifs combined with Indian classical phrasing, everything tethered in the recurrence of a persistent, driving refrain. The longer one listens, this refrain begins to emulate the hypnotic repetition of devotional music, drawing the listener further into Korwar's distinctive percussive world.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
After an long absence, Arab singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a mournful collection of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-language, dub-influenced sound that established her as a fixture in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is soft and introspective, singing tender melodies over the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop beat of Vows. During more energetic moments such as Shadia and Abyss, she adopts a wavering, yearning vibrato over electronic lines with North African flavors and skittering electronic percussion. The album's sound is lean and understated, yet this simplicity provides the ideal setting for Hamdan's emotive lyricism to resonate. It is truly deserving of the wait.
Number Eight: Debit – Desaceleradas
From Mexico electronic artist Debit has a knack for eerie reinterpretations of historical sounds. For her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dubby interpretation of the rhythmic Latin American dance genre. Debit slows this sound to a near-halt, running its signature synths and off-beat rhythm via layers of distortion and static to produce a novel, foreboding groove. At turns ambient and unsettling, Debit converts the joyous dancefloor sound of cumbia into a persistent, spectral echo.
Number Seven: The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sensory overload is the defining principle for the output of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira piles a tumult of alarms, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics over the longstanding Brazilian genre of baile funk. This emulates the driving sound of neighborhood block parties. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the ferocity, incorporating everything from four-on-the-floor techno beats to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly manic and overwhelmingly noisy forty-minute sonic journey. Surrender to the noise and Vieira's unapologetic productions become unexpectedly liberating.
6. Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco music and Punjabi folk melodies is a reissued gem. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an remarkably captivating combination of the metallic sound of early synthesizers and drum machines with her melismatic classical Indian singing style. Electronic percussion mimics the undulating tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody replicates the classic sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Elsewhere, bossa nova rhythm is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a driving walking disco bassline. It's a dancefloor fusion pioneered more than ten years before the rise of Asian Underground music.
5. The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance
Mongolian vocalist Enji's gentle new release, Sonor, develops her jazz-influenced sound to present some of her broadest music yet. Departing from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs travel from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodics of downtempo number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a sprightly, funk-tinged cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a ensemble rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains personal, inviting the listener into the tender soundscape of her unique voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa
Drawing on the 60s heritage of Turkish psychedelia established by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's third record alongside her group fuses the electric jangle of the amplified traditional lute with drifting keyboard and classic soul melodies. It's a 1970s throwback sound grounded in Yıldırım's commanding high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated sound. However, on Turkish standards such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group ventures into lively new territory. They craft slinking, downtempo grooves and lifting vocals that lend a novel, off-kilter twist to the Turkish psych sound.
Number Three: The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Catholic requiem mass music, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements all come together on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable latest work. Arranging music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through 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 dembow rhythms of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim
