The Ten Most Outstanding Worldwide Releases of This Past Year
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the international releases that expanded horizons. Here is a countdown of ten notable albums that characterized the year in music.
Number Ten: The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
A continuous, 40-minute suite of insistent drumming may not appear the easiest musical proposition. However, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar converts this insistent rhythm into a hypnotically captivating work. Guiding an group of three drummers, Korwar crafts a dense percussive dialect across the record's 10 movements. The album draws from the phasing techniques of Steve Reich as well as classical Indian rhythmic patterns, everything tethered in the recurrence of a continual, pulsing refrain. The longer one listens, this refrain evokes the hypnotic repetition of ceremonial music, drawing the listener deeper into Korwar's distinctive percussive universe.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
Following an long absence, Lebanese vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan returns with a contemplative collection of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-language, dub-tinged sound that made her a staple in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the nineties. Hamdan's voice is soft and ruminative, delivering soft melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop beat of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a wavering, longing vibrato against electronic lines with North African flavors and rattling electronic percussion. The production is sparse and restrained, yet this austerity provides the ideal environment for Hamdan's deeply felt lyricism to take center stage. The album proves to be that justifies the wait.
8. Debit – Desaceleradas
Mexican electronic artist Debit specializes in uncanny reimaginings of traditional music. For her new album, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby interpretation of the shuffling Latin American dance music genre. Debit drags this sound down to a crawl, processing its signature synths and off-beat rhythm via veils of sludge and hiss to create a new, sinister beat. Periodically ambient and unsettling, Debit morphs the exuberant dancefloor sound of cumbia into a persistent, ethereal memory.
Number Seven: The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sheer intensity is the key term for the music of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira piles a tumult of sirens, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics over the classic Brazilian genre of baile funk. This captures the energetic sound of favela street parties. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the ferocity, throwing in everything from four-on-the-floor techno beats to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a especially manic and deafeningly intense forty-minute sonic journey. Give in to the cacophony and Vieira's brash productions become unexpectedly freeing.
6. The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco beats and Punjabi folk melodies is a rediscovered treasure. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an remarkably engaging combination of the metallic sound of electronic keyboards and drum machines with her ornate Indian classical vocal technique. Drum machine patterns mimics the wavelike tones of the tabla, while synthesiser melody parallels the traditional sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, bossa nova rhythm is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a up-tempo walking disco bassline. It's a club-ready hybrid pioneered over a decade before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
5. The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance
From Mongolia vocalist Enji's gentle latest record, Sonor, develops her jazz-inflected sound to present some of her broadest music yet. Stepping outside her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks range from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodics of downtempo number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a sprightly, 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 remains personal, drawing the listener into the gentle acoustics of her singular voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow
Drawing on the 60s heritage of Anatolian rock pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's new album with her band Grup Şimşek blends the electric jangle of the amplified traditional lute with drifting Mellotron and soulful tunes. It's a nostalgic vibe grounded in Yıldırım's powerful high register and influenced by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated sound. However, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group finds dynamic new territory. They develop smooth, downtempo grooves and lifting vocals that give a novel, quirky spin to the Turkish psych sound.
3. Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Gregorian chants, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings converge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary fourth album. Arranging music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett explore everything from the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic dembow rhythms of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim
