This 10 Best Worldwide Albums of This Past Year
Looking back on the musical landscape of worldwide releases that defied expectations. Presenting a selection of ten exceptional albums that defined the year in music.
Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
A continuous, 40-minute suite of repetitive drumming could sound like it isn't the most approachable musical proposition. Yet, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar turns this driving beat into a unexpectedly magnetic work. Guiding an group of three drummers, Korwar crafts a complex percussive dialect throughout the record's ten parts. His composition draws from Steve Reich's phasing motifs alongside classical Indian rhythmic patterns, each grounded in the repetition of a ongoing, driving motif. The longer one listens, this refrain starts to mirror the hypnotic repetition of ritual music, pulling the listener further into Korwar's distinctive percussive realm.
Number Nine: The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Coming off an long absence, Arab singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a contemplative collection of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-sung, dub-tinged aesthetic that established her as a fixture in the Arab alternative scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is quiet and thoughtful, singing soft melodies atop the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rolling trip-hop beat of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she adopts a quivering, yearning vocal technique against electronic lines with North African flavors and skittering electronic percussion. The production is minimal and subtle, yet this austerity creates the perfect canvas for Hamdan's deeply felt songwriting to take center stage. This is a record that justifies the wait.
8. Debit – Desaceleradas
Mexican producer Debit has a knack for uncanny reinterpretations of historical sounds. On her latest release, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dubby interpretation of the shuffling Latin American musical style. Debit decelerates this sound even further, filtering its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm via veils of murk and static to create a new, menacing rhythm. At turns atmospheric and discomfiting, Debit morphs the joyous dancefloor sound of cumbia into a persistent, ethereal echo.
7. DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Maximalism is the defining principle for the records of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a tumult of sirens, explosive bass tones and screamed lyrics over the classic Brazilian genre of baile funk. This captures the driving sound of favela street parties. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the ferocity, incorporating everything from driving techno rhythms to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a especially hyperactive and deafeningly intense forty-minute listening experience. Submit to the cacophony and Vieira's bold productions become oddly freeing.
Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release of disco beats and Punjabi folk melodies is a newly appreciated masterpiece. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an remarkably captivating fusion of the sharp sound of 1980s synthesisers and programmed drums with her melismatic Indian classical singing style. Drum machine patterns mirrors the wavelike tones of the tabla, while synth lines parallels the traditional sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. At other times, bossa nova rhythm comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya boasts a fast-paced funky bass rhythm. It's a club-ready hybrid created more than ten years before the Asian Underground explosion.
5. The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor
Mongolian singer Enji's soft latest record, Sonor, develops her jazz-inflected sound to offer some of her most wide-ranging music to date. Stepping outside her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks range from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodics of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a energetic, funk-tinged cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Showcasing a full backing band rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still intimate, inviting the listener into the gentle soundscape of her distinctive voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa
Inspired by the psychedelic tradition of Turkish psychedelia established by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work alongside her group fuses the metallic twang of the amplified traditional lute with woozy Mellotron and R&B-inflected lines. It's a 1970s throwback sound rooted in Yıldırım's powerful high register and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape aesthetic. Yet, on classic Turkish songs such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group reaches dynamic new territory. They create slinking, downtempo grooves and soaring vocals that give a fresh, quirky spin to the Turkish psych sound.
3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Gregorian chants, Czech harpsichord folksong and orchestral strings merge on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable latest work. Arranging music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett traverse a vast range including the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic reggaeton-inspired beats of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim