This Ten Most Outstanding Global Records of This Past Year
The past twelve months have offered a rich tapestry of global sounds that defied expectations. Presenting a selection of ten exceptional albums that shaped the year in music.
10. The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of cyclical drumming might not seem the easiest listening experience. However, Indian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar converts this persistent pulse into a strangely alluring piece. Leading an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar creates a complex percussive vocabulary across the record's ten sections. The work draws from the phasing techniques of Steve Reich combined with classical Indian rhythmic patterns, each grounded in the reiteration of a persistent, driving figure. As the album progresses, this refrain evokes the trance-inducing cycles of ceremonial music, drawing the listener further into Korwar's singular percussive world.
Number Nine: The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Coming off an eight-year break, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a melancholy set of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-language, dub-tinged sound that established her as a fixture in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is quiet and thoughtful, delivering delicate melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop groove of Vows. During more energetic moments such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a quivering, yearning vocal technique against electronic lines with North African flavors and skittering electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is minimal and restrained, yet this simplicity offers the ideal canvas for Hamdan's deeply felt lyricism to resonate. This is a record that justifies the wait.
Number Eight: Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico producer Debit specializes in haunting reinterpretations of traditional music. On her new album, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby version of the rhythmic Latin American dance genre. Debit slows this sound even further, processing its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm via veils of sludge and hiss to generate a new, menacing groove. At turns ambient and unsettling, Debit morphs the exuberant dancefloor sound of cumbia into a lasting, ethereal memory.
7. The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Maximalism is the operative word for the music of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a onslaught of alarms, explosive bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the longstanding Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This captures the energetic sound of neighborhood block parties. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the energy, adding everything from driving techno rhythms to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a notably hyperactive and deafeningly intense 40-minute listening experience. Surrender to the cacophony and Vieira's unapologetic productions become strangely exhilarating.
6. The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a reissued masterpiece. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an remarkably compelling fusion of the sharp sound of 1980s synthesisers and programmed drums with her melismatic classical Indian vocal technique. Drum machine patterns echoes the wavelike tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody replicates the traditional sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Elsewhere, Latin-inflected grooves is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a up-tempo disco bass groove. It's a party blend created over a decade before the Asian Underground explosion.
5. Enji – Sonor
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. Departing from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces travel from the soft jazz-pop melodies of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-tinged cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a full backing band rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains personal, inviting the listener into the tender soundscape of her unique voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa
Channeling the psychedelic tradition of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's third record alongside her group fuses the metallic twang of the amplified traditional lute with woozy Mellotron and soulful tunes. It's a 1970s throwback sound grounded in Yıldırım's commanding high register and influenced by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated aesthetic. Yet, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group reaches lively new territory. They craft slinking, slow-burning grooves and lifting vocals that give a fresh, off-kilter interpretation to the Turkish psych sound.
Number Three: Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Sacred music, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings all come together on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's stunning fourth album. Arranging music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through a vast range including the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated dembow rhythms of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim
