This 10 Best Global Releases of This Past Year
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the worldwide releases that pushed boundaries. Here is a countdown of ten remarkable albums that defined the year in music.
Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
A continuous, 40-minute suite of insistent percussion might not seem the easiest musical proposition. However, Indian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar converts this persistent pulse into a strangely alluring work. Leading an group of three drummers, Korwar creates a complex percussive dialect over the record's ten parts. His composition channels the phasing techniques of Steve Reich combined with Indian classical phrasing, each grounded in the recurrence of a ongoing, pulsing motif. The longer one listens, this refrain starts to mirror the ceremonial rhythm of devotional music, luring the listener deeper into Korwar's distinctive percussive world.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Following an eight-year break, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan returns with a mournful set of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-language, dub-tinged aesthetic that cemented her status in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is soft and introspective, delivering tender melodies over the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop beat of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a wavering, longing vocal technique over Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and rattling electronic percussion. The album's sound is sparse and subtle, yet this simplicity creates the ideal setting for Hamdan's expressive songwriting to take center stage. It is well worth the wait.
Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Desaceleradas
From Mexico producer Debit has a knack for uncanny reinterpretations of historical sounds. For her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dubby interpretation of the rhythmic Latin American musical style. Debit decelerates this sound even further, running its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm through sheets of sludge and noise to create a novel, foreboding rhythm. At turns ambient and uneasy, Debit morphs the joyous dancefloor sound of cumbia into a persistent, ethereal memory.
Number Seven: The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Maximalism is the key term for the music of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira piles a tumult of sirens, explosive bass tones and screamed lyrics over the enduring Brazilian genre of baile funk. This captures the driving sound of neighborhood block parties. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates 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 notably frenetic and overwhelmingly noisy forty-minute sonic journey. Surrender to the assault and Vieira's unapologetic productions become oddly liberating.
Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release of disco beats and traditional Punjabi tunes is a rediscovered treasure. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an unusually compelling blend of the sharp sound of electronic keyboards and programmed drums with her fluid Indian classical singing style. Electronic percussion mirrors the undulating 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, Latin-inflected grooves comes to the fore 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 rise of Asian Underground music.
Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor
Mongolian vocalist Enji's delicate fourth album, Sonor, develops her jazz-inflected sound to present some of her most wide-ranging music to date. Departing from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks veer from the gentle jazz-pop melodics 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. Utilizing a live band rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still intimate, drawing the listener into the tender soundscape of her singular voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow
Inspired by the 1960s legacy of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work with her band Grup Şimşek blends the metallic twang of the amplified traditional lute with drifting keyboard and soulful tunes. It's a retro-70s aesthetic grounded in Yıldırım's strong falsetto and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. Yet, on classic Turkish songs such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group ventures into vibrant new territory. They craft sinuous, downtempo grooves and lifting vocals that lend a new, quirky spin to the Turkish psych sound.
3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Catholic requiem mass music, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings merge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's stunning latest work. Arranging music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett traverse everything from the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic reggaeton-inspired beats of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim