Our 10 Best Worldwide Records of This Past Year
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the global sounds that expanded horizons. Here is a countdown of ten exceptional albums that characterized the year in music.
Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of repetitive percussion might not seem the most approachable listening experience. Yet, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar converts this insistent rhythm into a hypnotically captivating work. Directing an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar creates a complex percussive language over the record's 10 movements. His composition draws from Steve Reich's phasing motifs as well as classical Indian rhythmic patterns, all anchored in the reiteration of a ongoing, thrumming motif. Over its duration, this refrain begins to emulate the hypnotic repetition of devotional music, luring the listener deeper into Korwar's unique percussive world.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
After an long absence, Arab singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a melancholy collection of songs. She expands on the Arabic-sung, dub-influenced style that cemented her status in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is soft and introspective, delivering soft melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rolling trip-hop beat of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she adopts a wavering, yearning vocal technique against Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and clattering electronic percussion. The album's sound is sparse and restrained, yet this simplicity offers the perfect environment for Hamdan's deeply felt lyricism to take center stage. It is truly deserving of the wait.
Number Eight: Debit – Slowed Down
Mexican electronic artist Debit has a knack for haunting reimaginings of traditional music. On her new album, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby version of the shuffling Latin American dance music genre. Debit slows this sound down to a crawl, processing its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm through layers of murk and noise to create a new, foreboding groove. Sometimes ambient and discomfiting, Debit converts the exuberant party music of cumbia into a lasting, ethereal memory.
Number Seven: DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sensory overload is the key term for the records of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira piles a cacophony of sirens, explosive bass tones and shouted lyrics over the enduring Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This emulates the energetic sound of favela street parties. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the intensity, adding everything from driving techno rhythms to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a especially frenetic and overwhelmingly noisy 40-minute listening experience. Submit to the noise and Vieira's bold productions become unexpectedly exhilarating.
Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco beats and Punjabi folk melodies is a reissued treasure. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an strikingly engaging fusion of the synthetic sound of electronic keyboards and programmed drums with her melismatic Indian classical vocal technique. Drum machine patterns mirrors the wavelike tones of the traditional drums, while synth lines parallels the classic sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. At other times, bossa nova rhythm takes center stage on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a driving walking disco bassline. It's a party blend delivered more than ten years before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
Number Five: Enji – Sonor
Mongolian vocalist Enji's delicate new release, Sonor, develops her jazz-inflected sound to present some of her most wide-ranging music so far. Stepping outside her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks veer from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodics of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a energetic, funk-tinged cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a full backing band rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay intimate, pulling the listener into the gentle soundscape of her distinctive voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa
Drawing on the 1960s legacy of Anatolian rock pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's third record with her band Grup Şimşek fuses the distinctive buzz of the electrified saz with drifting Mellotron and R&B-inflected lines. It's a 1970s throwback sound rooted in Yıldırım's powerful 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 lively new territory. They develop sinuous, slow-burning grooves and lifting vocals that lend a novel, quirky twist to the Turkish psych sound.
Number Three: The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Gregorian chants, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements converge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable fourth album. Arranging music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett explore a vast range including the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated reggaeton-inspired beats of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim
