Our Ten Top Global Releases of This Past Year
The past twelve months have offered a rich tapestry of international music that defied expectations. We explore ten notable albums that shaped the year in music.
10. Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of insistent drumming might not seem the most accessible musical proposition. Yet, Indian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar transforms this driving beat into a unexpectedly magnetic album. Leading an group of three drummers, Korwar develops a complex percussive vocabulary over the record's ten sections. The album references Steve Reich's phasing motifs alongside traditional Indian musical phrasing, each grounded in the reiteration of a persistent, pulsing refrain. The longer one listens, this refrain begins to emulate the hypnotic repetition of devotional music, drawing the listener deeper into Korwar's unique percussive world.
9. The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
After an long absence, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback 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 nineties. Hamdan's voice is quiet and introspective, delivering tender melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rolling trip-hop beat of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a trembling, yearning vibrato against Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and rattling electronic percussion. The production is lean and restrained, yet this minimalism offers the ideal canvas for Hamdan's emotive lyricism to take center stage. This is a record truly deserving of the long anticipation.
Number Eight: Debit – Desaceleradas
Mexican electronic artist Debit excels at uncanny reinterpretations of historical sounds. On her latest release, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dub-inflected interpretation of the rhythmic Latin American musical style. Debit decelerates this sound to a near-halt, running its signature synths and off-beat rhythm through veils of sludge and noise to produce a novel, sinister groove. Periodically ambient and discomfiting, Debit transforms the joyous party music of cumbia into a enduring, ethereal memory.
Number Seven: The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Maximalism is the defining principle for the music of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a onslaught of alarms, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the enduring Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This recreates the energetic sound of favela street parties. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the intensity, incorporating everything from four-on-the-floor techno beats to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a notably hyperactive and overwhelmingly noisy forty-minute listening experience. Surrender to the noise and Vieira's bold productions become strangely liberating.
Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a newly appreciated masterpiece. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an strikingly engaging fusion of the metallic sound of 1980s synthesisers and drum machines with her melismatic classical Indian singing style. Drum machine patterns mimics the wavelike tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody doubles the classic sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, bossa nova rhythm is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya boasts a up-tempo funky bass rhythm. It's a club-ready hybrid delivered over a decade before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
5. Enji – Sonor
From Mongolia singer Enji's delicate fourth album, Sonor, expands on her jazz-inflected sound to present some of her most wide-ranging music so far. Moving away from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs travel from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodics of downtempo number Ulbar to the German spoken-word 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 ensemble rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains personal, pulling the listener into the gentle acoustics of her distinctive voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – Yarın Yoksa
Inspired by the 1960s legacy of Anatolian rock pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's new album with her band Grup Şimşek blends the electric jangle of the electrified saz with woozy keyboard and classic soul melodies. It's a retro-70s aesthetic anchored in Yıldırım's commanding high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated aesthetic. However, on Turkish standards such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group finds vibrant new territory. They develop smooth, slow-burning grooves and lifting vocals that give a fresh, unconventional interpretation to the Turkish psych sound.
3. Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Sacred music, Eastern European folk melodies and symphonic arrangements converge on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's stunning latest work. Orchestrating music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through a vast range including the liturgical vocals 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. Ultimately, it is Pim
