Our 10 Best Global Albums of This Past Year
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the global sounds that expanded horizons. We explore ten exceptional albums that characterized the year in music.
10. The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
A continuous, 40-minute suite of cyclical percussion may not appear the easiest listening experience. Yet, Indian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar transforms this insistent rhythm into a unexpectedly magnetic album. Directing an group of three drummers, Korwar develops a complex percussive dialect over the record's ten parts. The work references minimalist concepts from Steve Reich alongside Indian classical phrasing, each grounded in the repetition of a ongoing, thrumming figure. Over its duration, this refrain starts to mirror the trance-inducing cycles of ceremonial music, pulling the listener further into Korwar's distinctive percussive universe.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
After an hiatus of eight years, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a contemplative album of songs. She expands on the Arabic-language, dub-influenced sound that cemented her status in the Arab alternative scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is gentle and introspective, singing 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 employs a quivering, longing vocal technique over Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and rattling electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is lean and understated, yet this austerity provides the perfect canvas for Hamdan's emotive lyricism to resonate. It is that justifies the wait.
Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down
Mexican producer Debit specializes in haunting reinterpretations of archival audio. On her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected interpretation of the shuffling Latin American dance genre. Debit drags this sound down to a crawl, running its signature synths and syncopated rhythm via veils of murk and static to create a new, sinister groove. Periodically ambient and uneasy, Debit transforms the joyous party music of cumbia into a persistent, spectral afterimage.
7. The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Maximalism is the defining principle for the output of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira piles a onslaught of sirens, explosive bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the enduring Brazilian genre of baile funk. This recreates the energetic sound of urban celebrations. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the energy, throwing in everything from driving techno rhythms to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly hyperactive and overwhelmingly noisy forty-minute sonic journey. Surrender to the noise and Vieira's unapologetic productions become strangely exhilarating.
Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a rediscovered gem. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an remarkably compelling combination of the sharp sound of 1980s synthesisers and programmed drums with her fluid classical Indian vocal technique. Electronic percussion mimics the undulating tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody replicates the classic sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. At other times, bossa nova rhythm comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a driving walking disco bassline. It's a party blend pioneered more than ten years before the rise of Asian Underground music.
5. The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor
From Mongolia singer Enji's soft fourth album, Sonor, expands on her jazz-influenced 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 range from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodics of downtempo number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-inflected 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 is still close, drawing the listener into the gentle soundscape of her unique voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa
Channeling the 60s heritage of Anatolian rock established by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's third record with her band Grup Şimşek merges the distinctive buzz of the amplified traditional lute with drifting keyboard and soulful tunes. It's a 1970s throwback sound anchored in Yıldırım's powerful high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. But, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group finds vibrant new territory. They create smooth, downtempo grooves and powerful vocals that give a new, off-kilter spin to the Turkish psych sound.
Number Three: The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Catholic requiem mass music, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings converge on Colombian-born 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 counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated dembow rhythms of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim
