The 10 Best Worldwide Records of This Past Year
Looking back on the musical landscape of global sounds that pushed boundaries. We explore ten exceptional albums that shaped the year in music.
Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of repetitive drumming could sound like it isn't the easiest listening experience. However, Indian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar converts this driving beat into a unexpectedly magnetic work. Directing an group of three drummers, Korwar crafts a complex percussive language over the record's 10 movements. The work references the phasing techniques of Steve Reich alongside traditional Indian musical phrasing, all anchored in the reiteration of a continual, thrumming figure. The longer one listens, this refrain starts to mirror the ceremonial rhythm of devotional music, drawing the listener further into Korwar's distinctive percussive world.
9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Following an hiatus of eight years, Arab singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a contemplative album of songs. She expands on the Arabic-sung, dub-tinged sound that cemented her status in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is quiet and thoughtful, singing tender 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 adopts a wavering, longing vibrato against Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and clattering electronic percussion. The production is lean and understated, yet this simplicity creates the ideal setting for Hamdan's expressive compositions to take center stage. This is a record that justifies the wait.
8. Debit – Desaceleradas
Mexican electronic artist Debit has a knack for eerie reinterpretations of archival audio. On her latest release, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby take of the rhythmic Latin American musical style. Debit drags this sound even further, running its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm through layers of sludge and static to generate a novel, menacing rhythm. At turns atmospheric and uneasy, Debit morphs the joyous party music of cumbia into a enduring, spectral echo.
Number Seven: DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sensory overload is the defining principle for the music of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a onslaught of sirens, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics on top of the longstanding Brazilian genre of baile funk. This recreates the energetic sound of urban celebrations. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the energy, incorporating everything from driving techno rhythms to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly frenetic and deafeningly intense forty-minute listening experience. Surrender to the assault and Vieira's unapologetic productions become oddly freeing.
Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a reissued masterpiece. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an strikingly captivating combination of the sharp sound of 1980s synthesisers and drum machines with her fluid Indian classical singing style. Electronic percussion mimics the wavelike tones of the traditional drums, while synth lines replicates the traditional sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, bossa nova rhythm comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a up-tempo disco bass groove. It's a dancefloor fusion delivered more than ten years before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
5. Enji – Resonance
Mongolian vocalist Enji's gentle latest record, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-inflected sound to present some of her most wide-ranging music so far. Moving away from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks veer from the gentle jazz-pop melodies 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. Featuring a full backing band rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay intimate, inviting the listener into the tender soundscape of her distinctive voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – Yarın Yoksa
Drawing on the 1960s legacy of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's third record alongside her group merges the distinctive buzz of the amplified traditional lute with drifting Mellotron and classic soul melodies. It's a nostalgic vibe grounded in Yıldırım's strong high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. But, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group reaches dynamic new territory. They create smooth, downtempo grooves and soaring vocals that lend a new, off-kilter spin to the Turkish psych sound.
Number Three: Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Gregorian chants, Eastern European folk melodies and symphonic arrangements merge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary fourth album. Orchestrating 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 interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic reggaeton-inspired beats of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim
