Our 10 Most Outstanding Worldwide Releases of This Past Year
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the international music that expanded horizons. We explore ten notable albums that shaped the year in music.
Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
A continuous, 40-minute suite of repetitive percussion could sound like it isn't the easiest listening experience. But, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar converts this insistent rhythm into a strangely alluring piece. Leading an trio of three drummers, Korwar creates a intricate percussive dialect across the record's ten sections. His composition draws from the phasing techniques of Steve Reich combined with Indian classical phrasing, all anchored in the recurrence of a ongoing, driving refrain. As the album progresses, this refrain begins to emulate the hypnotic repetition of devotional music, drawing the listener deeper into Korwar's singular percussive realm.
Number Nine: The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Following an long absence, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a melancholy collection of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-sung, dub-influenced aesthetic that made her a staple in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is gentle and ruminative, delivering 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 adopts a wavering, longing vocal technique over electronic lines with North African flavors and skittering electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is sparse and subtle, yet this simplicity offers the perfect environment for Hamdan's emotive lyricism to take center stage. This is a record that justifies the long anticipation.
8. The Mexican Producer Debit – Desaceleradas
From Mexico electronic artist Debit specializes in uncanny reworkings of historical sounds. For her new album, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dubby interpretation of the shuffling Latin American musical style. Debit slows this sound to a near-halt, processing its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm through sheets of sludge and static to generate a fresh, sinister groove. Sometimes atmospheric and discomfiting, Debit morphs the celebratory party music of cumbia into a enduring, ghostly afterimage.
Number Seven: The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sheer intensity is the key term for the music of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a cacophony of sirens, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics over the enduring Brazilian genre of baile funk. This emulates the energetic sound of urban celebrations. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the ferocity, adding everything from driving techno rhythms to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly frenetic and deafeningly intense forty-minute sonic journey. Surrender to the assault and Vieira's unapologetic productions become unexpectedly freeing.
Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco music and Punjabi folk melodies is a rediscovered masterpiece. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an unusually captivating blend of the metallic sound of early synthesizers and drum machines with her ornate classical Indian singing style. Electronic percussion mirrors the wavelike tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody parallels the classic sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. At other times, Latin-inflected grooves takes center stage on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya boasts a driving walking disco bassline. It's a dancefloor fusion pioneered more than ten years before the Asian Underground explosion.
5. The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance
Mongolian singer Enji's delicate latest record, Sonor, builds upon 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 eleven songs range from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodies of downtempo number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a sprightly, funk-tinged cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a ensemble rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains close, inviting the listener into the tender acoustics of her singular voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – If There Is No Tomorrow
Drawing on the psychedelic tradition of Anatolian rock pioneered 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 drifting Mellotron and soulful tunes. It's a 1970s throwback sound rooted in Yıldırım's strong high register and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. But, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group finds dynamic new territory. They craft smooth, downtempo grooves and powerful vocals that give a fresh, quirky spin to the Turkish psych sound.
Number Three: The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Catholic requiem mass music, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements all come together on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary fourth album. Arranging music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through everything from the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated dembow rhythms of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim
