This 10 Best Worldwide Albums of This Past Year
Looking back on the musical landscape of global sounds that expanded horizons. We explore ten notable 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 might not seem the most accessible listening experience. But, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar turns this insistent rhythm into a hypnotically captivating album. Guiding an trio of three drummers, Korwar crafts a complex percussive dialect over the record's ten parts. The work draws from minimalist concepts from Steve Reich alongside traditional Indian musical phrasing, all anchored in the recurrence of a persistent, thrumming refrain. Over its duration, this refrain evokes the hypnotic repetition of devotional music, drawing the listener further into Korwar's distinctive percussive world.
Number Nine: The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Following an hiatus of eight years, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a contemplative collection of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-language, dub-tinged aesthetic that cemented her status in the Arab alternative scene since the nineties. Hamdan's vocal delivery is quiet and introspective, singing delicate melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop groove of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a trembling, longing vibrato against Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and skittering electronic percussion. The album's sound is lean and understated, yet this austerity creates the ideal canvas for Hamdan's emotive lyricism to resonate. The album proves to be truly deserving of the wait.
8. The Mexican Producer Debit – Desaceleradas
From Mexico producer Debit specializes in uncanny reimaginings of traditional music. On her new album, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected take of the rhythmic Latin American dance genre. Debit drags this sound down to a crawl, filtering its signature synths and syncopated rhythm through veils of sludge and noise to create a fresh, foreboding rhythm. At turns ambient and uneasy, Debit converts the celebratory party music of cumbia into a enduring, ethereal memory.
7. DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sensory overload is the defining principle for the output of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a tumult of alarms, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics over the enduring Brazilian genre of baile funk. This emulates the driving sound of neighborhood block parties. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the energy, incorporating everything from techno kick drums to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a especially frenetic and overwhelmingly noisy forty-minute listening experience. Submit to the noise and Vieira's brash productions become unexpectedly liberating.
6. 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 reissued masterpiece. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an strikingly engaging fusion of the sharp sound of electronic keyboards and drum machines with her ornate Indian classical vocal technique. Electronic percussion echoes the rolling tones of the tabla, while synthesiser melody replicates the traditional sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, Latin-inflected grooves comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a up-tempo walking disco bassline. It's a party blend pioneered more than ten years before the Asian Underground explosion.
Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance
Mongolian singer Enji's gentle latest record, Sonor, expands on her jazz-inflected sound to deliver some of her most wide-ranging music to date. Moving away from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces travel from the gentle 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-tinged cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Showcasing a full backing band rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains intimate, drawing the listener into the warm soundscape of her singular voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa
Inspired by the 1960s legacy of Turkish psychedelia established by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's new album alongside her group fuses the electric jangle of the electrified saz with woozy keyboard and soulful tunes. It's a 1970s throwback sound rooted in Yıldırım's commanding high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape aesthetic. Yet, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group reaches lively new territory. They craft sinuous, slow-burning grooves and powerful vocals that lend a fresh, off-kilter interpretation to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
3. Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Sacred music, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings all come together on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable latest work. Orchestrating 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 reggaeton-inspired beats of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim
