The Ten Most Outstanding Worldwide Records of This Past Year
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the global sounds that expanded horizons. We explore ten exceptional albums that shaped the year in music.
Number Ten: The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on insistent drumming could sound like it isn't the most approachable musical proposition. However, Indian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar turns this persistent pulse into a unexpectedly magnetic piece. Leading an trio of three drummers, Korwar develops a complex percussive vocabulary throughout the record's ten parts. His composition channels the phasing techniques of Steve Reich combined with classical Indian rhythmic patterns, everything tethered in the repetition of a ongoing, thrumming motif. Over its duration, this refrain starts to mirror the trance-inducing cycles of ceremonial music, pulling the listener further into Korwar's singular percussive world.
Number Nine: The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
After an long absence, Arab singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a melancholy collection of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-language, dub-influenced style that established her as a fixture in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is gentle and introspective, delivering tender melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop beat of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a wavering, longing vocal technique over Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and skittering electronic percussion. The production is lean and restrained, yet this simplicity provides the ideal setting for Hamdan's deeply felt songwriting to take center stage. It is truly deserving of the long anticipation.
Number Eight: Debit – Desaceleradas
Mexican producer Debit specializes in uncanny reinterpretations of traditional music. For her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dub-inflected version of the rhythmic Latin American dance music genre. Debit drags this sound to a near-halt, filtering its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm via veils of murk and static to create a novel, sinister beat. At turns atmospheric and discomfiting, Debit morphs the joyous dancefloor sound of cumbia into a enduring, spectral memory.
Number Seven: DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sheer intensity is the defining principle for the output of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a tumult of sirens, explosive bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the enduring Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This captures the driving sound of favela street parties. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the ferocity, adding 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 especially frenetic and overwhelmingly noisy 40-minute sonic journey. Give in to the assault and Vieira's bold productions become oddly exhilarating.
Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco beats and traditional Punjabi tunes is a reissued masterpiece. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an strikingly engaging fusion of the metallic sound of 1980s synthesisers and drum machines with her fluid classical Indian singing style. Drum machine patterns echoes the wavelike tones of the tabla, while synthesiser melody parallels the classic sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Elsewhere, bossa nova rhythm comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a driving disco bass groove. It's a club-ready hybrid delivered over a decade before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
Number Five: Enji – Sonor
From Mongolia vocalist Enji's gentle fourth album, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-influenced sound to present some of her most wide-ranging music yet. Stepping outside her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces travel from the soft jazz-pop melodies of downtempo number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a energetic, funk-inflected 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 close, pulling the listener into the warm soundscape of her distinctive voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa
Drawing on the 60s heritage of Anatolian rock established by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work alongside her group blends the metallic twang of the electrified saz with dreamy Mellotron and soulful tunes. It's a retro-70s aesthetic anchored in Yıldırım's powerful falsetto and influenced by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated sound. But, on classic Turkish songs such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group finds vibrant new territory. They create smooth, slow-burning grooves and powerful vocals that lend a novel, quirky twist to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Catholic requiem mass music, Czech harpsichord folksong and orchestral strings merge on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary latest work. Orchestrating music for the sixty-member 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 rhythmic reggaeton-inspired beats of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim
