The Ten Finest Worldwide Albums of This Past Year
Looking back on the musical landscape of worldwide music that pushed boundaries. We explore ten exceptional albums that characterized the year in music.
10. Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of insistent drumming might not seem the easiest listening experience. However, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar turns this insistent rhythm into a hypnotically captivating album. Guiding an group of three drummers, Korwar crafts a intricate percussive vocabulary throughout the record's ten parts. The album draws from the phasing techniques of Steve Reich combined with classical Indian rhythmic patterns, everything tethered in the recurrence of a continual, thrumming figure. The longer one listens, this refrain starts to mirror the hypnotic repetition of ceremonial music, drawing the listener deeper into Korwar's distinctive percussive universe.
9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Coming off an hiatus of eight years, Arab singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan returns with a melancholy collection of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-language, dub-tinged aesthetic that cemented her status in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is gentle and introspective, singing delicate melodies over the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop groove of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a trembling, yearning vocal technique over Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and skittering electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is minimal and restrained, yet this minimalism creates the ideal environment for Hamdan's expressive compositions to resonate. This is a record well worth the long anticipation.
8. Debit – Slowed Down
Mexican electronic artist Debit has a knack for eerie reworkings of traditional music. For her latest release, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dubby version of the rhythmic Latin American dance music genre. Debit drags this sound even further, processing its signature synths and syncopated rhythm via veils of sludge and hiss to create a new, foreboding groove. Sometimes atmospheric and unsettling, Debit transforms the celebratory dancefloor sound of cumbia into a lasting, ethereal echo.
7. DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Maximalism is the key term for the records of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a cacophony of alarms, explosive bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the classic Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This recreates the energetic sound of neighborhood block parties. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the intensity, adding everything from techno kick drums to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly hyperactive and deafeningly intense 40-minute sonic journey. Give in to the noise and Vieira's bold productions become oddly liberating.
Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco beats and Punjabi folk melodies is a newly appreciated treasure. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an strikingly compelling blend of the metallic sound of electronic keyboards and programmed drums with her melismatic classical Indian singing style. Drum machine patterns mimics the rolling tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody parallels the traditional sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, Latin-inflected grooves is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a up-tempo funky bass rhythm. It's a dancefloor fusion pioneered over a decade before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance
Mongolian singer Enji's soft fourth album, Sonor, develops her jazz-influenced sound to present some of her most wide-ranging music so far. Stepping outside her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces travel from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodics of downtempo number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, 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 manages to stay personal, pulling the listener into the gentle soundscape of her unique voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa
Channeling the psychedelic tradition of Anatolian rock established by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's third record with her band Grup Şimşek fuses the electric jangle of the amplified traditional lute with dreamy Mellotron and R&B-inflected lines. It's a nostalgic vibe anchored in Yıldırım's commanding falsetto and influenced by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated aesthetic. However, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group reaches lively new territory. They create smooth, downtempo grooves and powerful vocals that impart a novel, quirky twist to the Turkish psych sound.
3. Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Sacred music, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings 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 explore everything from the liturgical vocals 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
