Our Ten Best Worldwide Records of This Past Year
Looking back on the musical landscape of global releases that pushed boundaries. We explore ten remarkable albums that defined the year in music.
Number Ten: The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
A continuous, 40-minute suite of repetitive percussion may not appear the most approachable musical proposition. But, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar turns this persistent pulse into a strangely alluring album. Guiding an group of three drummers, Korwar develops a intricate percussive language over 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 repetition of a persistent, pulsing figure. The longer one listens, this refrain begins to emulate the hypnotic repetition of devotional music, pulling the listener deeper into Korwar's singular percussive realm.
9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
After an eight-year break, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a contemplative album of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-language, dub-influenced style that made her a staple in the Arab alternative scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is gentle and introspective, delivering tender melodies atop the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop groove of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a quivering, longing vibrato over electronic lines with North African flavors and rattling electronic percussion. The production is lean and subtle, yet this minimalism provides the perfect canvas for Hamdan's deeply felt compositions to shine through. This is a record truly deserving of the long anticipation.
Number Eight: Debit – Desaceleradas
From Mexico electronic artist Debit specializes in eerie reworkings of historical sounds. For her new album, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby interpretation of the shuffling Latin American dance genre. Debit decelerates this sound even further, running its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm via veils of distortion and noise to produce a novel, sinister rhythm. Periodically atmospheric and unsettling, Debit transforms the joyous dancefloor sound of cumbia into a enduring, spectral afterimage.
7. DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sensory overload is the key term for the music of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a cacophony of sirens, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics over the classic Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This captures the propulsive sound of urban celebrations. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the ferocity, incorporating everything from driving techno rhythms to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a especially manic and overwhelmingly noisy 40-minute listening experience. Submit to the noise and Vieira's brash productions become oddly freeing.
6. Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco beats and Punjabi folk melodies is a newly appreciated treasure. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an remarkably compelling fusion of the sharp sound of early synthesizers and drum machines with her ornate Indian classical singing style. Electronic percussion echoes the undulating tones of the traditional drums, while synth lines doubles 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 boasts a fast-paced funky bass rhythm. It's a party blend created over a decade before the rise of Asian Underground music.
Number Five: Enji – Resonance
Mongolian vocalist Enji's soft latest record, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-inflected sound to present some of her most diverse music so far. Departing from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs range from the soft jazz-pop melodies of downtempo number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-inflected cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a ensemble rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay close, drawing the listener into the tender soundscape of her unique voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – If There Is No Tomorrow
Drawing on the psychedelic tradition of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's new album with her band Grup Şimşek merges the electric jangle of the electrified saz with woozy keyboard and classic soul melodies. It's a 1970s throwback sound rooted in Yıldırım's commanding falsetto and influenced by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated sound. Yet, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group ventures into dynamic new territory. They develop slinking, downtempo grooves and lifting vocals that impart a new, unconventional twist to the Turkish psych sound.
Number Three: Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Gregorian chants, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements all come together on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary latest work. Arranging music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett traverse everything from 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 brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim
