This 10 Most Outstanding Global Releases of This Past Year
Looking back on the musical landscape of worldwide releases that pushed boundaries. Here is a countdown of ten exceptional albums that shaped the year in music.
Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
A continuous, 40-minute suite of insistent drumming might not seem the most accessible musical proposition. However, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar turns this persistent pulse into a strangely alluring album. Leading an group of three drummers, Korwar develops a intricate percussive language over the record's 10 movements. The work channels minimalist concepts from Steve Reich alongside Indian classical phrasing, each grounded in the recurrence of a ongoing, thrumming refrain. Over its duration, this refrain evokes the hypnotic repetition of ceremonial music, pulling the listener further into Korwar's unique percussive universe.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
After an hiatus of eight years, Arab singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan returns with a melancholy album of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-language, dub-tinged style that made her a staple in the region's indie music scene since the nineties. Hamdan's vocal delivery is soft and thoughtful, delivering delicate 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 trembling, yearning vibrato against Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and skittering electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is lean and understated, yet this minimalism creates the ideal setting for Hamdan's expressive compositions to resonate. It is that justifies the wait.
Number Eight: Debit – Slowed Down
Mexican electronic artist Debit has a knack for uncanny reimaginings of traditional music. For her new album, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dubby take of the rhythmic Latin American musical style. Debit slows this sound down to a crawl, filtering its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm via veils of murk and hiss to generate a new, menacing beat. Periodically atmospheric and discomfiting, Debit converts the celebratory dancefloor sound of cumbia into a persistent, ethereal afterimage.
7. The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sheer intensity is the defining principle for the records of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira piles a tumult of sirens, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics over the classic Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This recreates the propulsive sound of favela street parties. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the ferocity, incorporating everything from techno kick drums to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a especially frenetic and deafeningly intense forty-minute listening experience. Submit to the assault and Vieira's unapologetic productions become oddly freeing.
Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release of disco beats and traditional Punjabi tunes is a reissued masterpiece. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an unusually compelling blend of the metallic sound of electronic keyboards and drum machines with her melismatic Indian classical singing style. Drum machine patterns echoes the rolling tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody parallels the classic sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, Latin-inflected grooves takes center stage on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a fast-paced funky bass rhythm. It's a dancefloor fusion delivered over a decade before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
Number Five: Enji – Sonor
From Mongolia vocalist Enji's soft latest record, Sonor, expands on her jazz-influenced sound to offer some of her most wide-ranging music yet. Moving away from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks travel from the soft jazz-pop melodics of slow-burning 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 live band rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains personal, drawing the listener into the tender soundscape of her unique voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa
Drawing on the 1960s legacy of Anatolian rock established by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's third record alongside her group blends the electric jangle of the amplified traditional lute with dreamy keyboard and R&B-inflected lines. It's a retro-70s aesthetic grounded in Yıldırım's commanding high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated sound. Yet, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group ventures into lively new territory. They craft smooth, downtempo grooves and powerful vocals that give a novel, quirky twist to the Turkish psych sound.
3. Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Gregorian chants, Eastern European folk melodies and symphonic arrangements converge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's stunning fourth album. Arranging music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through everything from the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic reggaeton-inspired beats of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim
