This Ten Most Outstanding Worldwide Albums of This Past Year
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the global releases that expanded horizons. We explore ten notable albums that shaped the year in music.
10. The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
A continuous, 40-minute suite of repetitive drumming might not seem the most approachable musical proposition. Yet, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar converts this driving beat into a hypnotically captivating album. Directing an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar creates a dense percussive vocabulary throughout the record's 10 movements. His composition draws from Steve Reich's phasing motifs as well as traditional Indian musical phrasing, all anchored in the reiteration of a ongoing, pulsing figure. Over its duration, this refrain begins to emulate the ceremonial rhythm of ritual music, drawing the listener deeper into Korwar's unique percussive universe.
9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
After an hiatus of eight years, Lebanese vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a mournful collection of songs. She expands on the Arabic-language, dub-tinged sound that cemented her status in the region's indie music scene since the nineties. Hamdan's voice is soft and ruminative, delivering soft melodies over the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop beat of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she adopts a trembling, longing vocal technique against Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and clattering electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is minimal and understated, yet this simplicity provides the perfect environment for Hamdan's emotive lyricism to take center stage. This is a record well worth the long anticipation.
8. The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico electronic artist Debit excels at uncanny reworkings of traditional music. For her new album, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected version of the shuffling Latin American musical style. Debit decelerates this sound to a near-halt, processing its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm through veils of sludge and static to produce a novel, sinister beat. Periodically atmospheric and discomfiting, Debit transforms the celebratory party music of cumbia into a persistent, ghostly memory.
Number Seven: DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sheer intensity is the operative word for the music of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a tumult of sirens, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics over the enduring Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This recreates the propulsive sound of urban celebrations. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the intensity, incorporating everything from driving techno rhythms to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly manic and punishingly loud forty-minute sonic journey. Surrender to the noise and Vieira's brash productions become oddly freeing.
Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco beats and Punjabi folk melodies is a reissued gem. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an unusually compelling blend of the synthetic sound of early synthesizers and programmed drums with her melismatic Indian classical singing style. Electronic percussion echoes the undulating tones of the tabla, while synthesiser melody replicates the traditional sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Elsewhere, Latin-inflected grooves is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a driving walking disco bassline. It's a club-ready hybrid created over a decade before the Asian Underground explosion.
5. Enji – Resonance
Mongolian vocalist Enji's delicate new release, Sonor, expands on her jazz-influenced sound to present some of her most diverse music to date. Stepping outside her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs range from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodics of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-inflected cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Showcasing a ensemble rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still intimate, pulling the listener into the gentle acoustics of her distinctive voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow
Drawing on the psychedelic tradition of Turkish psychedelia established by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's new album with her band Grup Şimşek fuses the metallic twang of the electrified saz with woozy keyboard and R&B-inflected lines. It's a retro-70s aesthetic anchored in Yıldırım's powerful falsetto and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. However, on classic Turkish songs such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group reaches vibrant new territory. They develop slinking, slow-burning grooves and powerful vocals that give a novel, unconventional interpretation to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
3. Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Gregorian chants, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings merge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable fourth album. Orchestrating music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett explore a vast range including the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated dembow rhythms of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim
