The 10 Greatest Worldwide Albums of This Past Year
The past twelve months have offered a rich tapestry of worldwide releases that defied expectations. Here is a countdown of ten notable albums that characterized the year in music.
Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
A continuous, 40-minute suite of cyclical percussion might not seem the easiest listening experience. But, Indian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar turns this persistent pulse into a unexpectedly magnetic piece. Directing an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar creates a dense percussive language throughout the record's 10 movements. The work draws from Steve Reich's phasing motifs as well as traditional Indian musical phrasing, each grounded in the repetition of a continual, driving refrain. As the album progresses, this refrain starts to mirror the hypnotic repetition of devotional music, drawing the listener further into Korwar's singular percussive universe.
Number Nine: The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
Coming off an hiatus of eight years, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a contemplative set of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-language, dub-influenced aesthetic that made her a staple in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is quiet and thoughtful, delivering tender melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop groove of Vows. During more energetic moments such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a trembling, longing vibrato against north African synth lines and clattering electronic percussion. The production is minimal and subtle, yet this minimalism provides the ideal setting for Hamdan's deeply felt songwriting to shine through. It is well worth the long anticipation.
Number Eight: Debit – Desaceleradas
Mexican electronic artist Debit specializes in haunting reinterpretations of archival audio. On her new album, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dub-inflected version of the shuffling Latin American musical style. Debit decelerates this sound down to a crawl, filtering its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm through sheets of sludge and hiss to generate a novel, foreboding beat. Periodically ambient and discomfiting, Debit transforms the celebratory party music of cumbia into a lasting, spectral memory.
Number Seven: DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sheer intensity is the key term for the output of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a cacophony of alarms, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics over the classic Brazilian genre of baile funk. This emulates the driving sound of neighborhood block parties. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the ferocity, incorporating everything from techno kick drums to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly hyperactive and deafeningly intense forty-minute sonic journey. Submit to the noise and Vieira's brash productions become strangely liberating.
Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco beats and traditional Punjabi tunes is a reissued gem. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an unusually compelling combination of the synthetic sound of 1980s synthesisers and programmed drums with her melismatic Indian classical singing style. Electronic percussion mimics the rolling tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody replicates 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 boasts a driving funky bass rhythm. It's a dancefloor fusion created more than ten years before the Asian Underground explosion.
5. The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor
From Mongolia singer Enji's gentle latest record, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-influenced sound to present some of her most diverse music so far. Moving away from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces veer from the soft jazz-pop melodics of downtempo number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a sprightly, funk-inflected cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a live band rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay personal, inviting the listener into the tender acoustics of her distinctive voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – Yarın Yoksa
Inspired by the 1960s legacy of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work with her band Grup Şimşek fuses the metallic twang of the amplified traditional lute with woozy keyboard and R&B-inflected lines. It's a nostalgic vibe anchored in Yıldırım's powerful high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated sound. However, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group finds vibrant new territory. They develop slinking, downtempo grooves and lifting vocals that give a new, unconventional interpretation to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
Number Three: Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Sacred music, Czech harpsichord folksong and orchestral strings merge on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's stunning latest work. Orchestrating music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through everything from the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated reggaeton-inspired beats of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim
