The 10 Best Worldwide Albums of This Past Year
The past twelve months have offered a rich tapestry of worldwide releases that pushed boundaries. Here is a countdown of ten remarkable albums that characterized the year in music.
10. Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
A continuous, 40-minute suite of cyclical drumming may not appear the easiest listening experience. However, Indian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar converts this persistent pulse into a hypnotically captivating piece. Directing an group of three drummers, Korwar develops a dense percussive dialect across the record's ten parts. The album draws from the phasing techniques of Steve Reich combined with Indian classical phrasing, each grounded in the recurrence of a ongoing, pulsing motif. As the album progresses, this refrain begins to emulate the trance-inducing cycles of ceremonial music, drawing the listener further into Korwar's singular percussive realm.
9. The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
Coming off an hiatus of eight years, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a contemplative collection of songs. She expands on the Arabic-sung, dub-tinged style that made her a staple in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the nineties. Hamdan's voice is quiet and thoughtful, delivering soft melodies atop 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 employs a wavering, longing vocal technique over Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and skittering electronic percussion. The production is lean and subtle, yet this austerity creates the perfect setting for Hamdan's deeply felt compositions to take center stage. This is a record truly deserving of the wait.
Number Eight: Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico producer Debit excels at uncanny reimaginings of traditional music. For her latest release, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected version of the rhythmic Latin American dance genre. Debit slows this sound to a near-halt, processing its signature synths and off-beat rhythm through layers of sludge and noise to create a new, foreboding groove. Sometimes atmospheric and uneasy, Debit transforms the exuberant dancefloor sound of cumbia into a enduring, ethereal echo.
Number Seven: DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sensory overload is the key term for the music of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a onslaught of sirens, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics over the longstanding Brazilian genre of baile funk. This captures the driving sound of urban celebrations. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the energy, throwing in everything from techno kick drums to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a especially manic and punishingly loud forty-minute listening experience. Give in to the cacophony and Vieira's bold productions become strangely freeing.
Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a rediscovered treasure. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an strikingly compelling fusion of the sharp sound of early synthesizers and drum machines with her fluid classical Indian singing style. Electronic percussion mimics the undulating tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody doubles the traditional sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, bossa nova rhythm comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya boasts a driving funky bass rhythm. It's a club-ready hybrid delivered over a decade before the rise of Asian Underground music.
5. The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor
From Mongolia singer Enji's gentle new release, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-inflected sound to offer some of her most wide-ranging music yet. Stepping outside her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks travel from the soft jazz-pop melodies of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a energetic, funk-tinged cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a live band rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains personal, pulling the listener into the warm acoustics of her distinctive voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – Yarın Yoksa
Inspired by the 1960s legacy of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's third record with her band Grup Şimşek blends the distinctive buzz of the electrified saz with woozy Mellotron and classic soul melodies. It's a nostalgic vibe grounded in Yıldırım's powerful high register and shaped 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 lively new territory. They create sinuous, slow-burning grooves and powerful vocals that impart a new, off-kilter twist to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
Number Three: The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Gregorian chants, Eastern European folk melodies and symphonic arrangements converge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's stunning latest work. Arranging music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through a vast range including the Gregorian chants 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 brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim
