Our 10 Greatest Worldwide Albums of This Past Year
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the global releases that pushed boundaries. Presenting a selection of ten notable albums that defined the year in music.
Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
A continuous, 40-minute suite of cyclical drumming might not seem the most approachable listening experience. Yet, Indian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar converts this insistent rhythm into a strangely alluring album. Guiding an group of three drummers, Korwar crafts a complex percussive language over the record's ten parts. The album channels the phasing techniques of Steve Reich combined with Indian classical phrasing, all anchored in the reiteration of a continual, thrumming figure. Over its duration, this refrain evokes the ceremonial rhythm of ceremonial music, luring the listener further into Korwar's unique percussive world.
9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
Following an long absence, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan returns with a contemplative album of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-language, dub-tinged aesthetic that cemented her status in the Arab alternative scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is quiet and introspective, delivering delicate melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rolling trip-hop groove of Vows. During more energetic moments such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a quivering, yearning vibrato over north African synth lines and skittering electronic percussion. The production is minimal and understated, yet this simplicity creates the ideal setting for Hamdan's deeply felt lyricism to shine through. It is that justifies the long anticipation.
Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Desaceleradas
From Mexico electronic artist Debit specializes in uncanny reworkings of traditional music. For her new album, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dubby version of the shuffling Latin American musical style. Debit slows this sound to a near-halt, running its signature synths and syncopated rhythm through sheets of murk and noise to create a novel, foreboding groove. Periodically atmospheric and discomfiting, Debit converts the exuberant party music of cumbia into a lasting, ethereal afterimage.
7. DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sheer intensity is the defining principle for the output of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a tumult of alarms, explosive bass tones and shouted lyrics over the longstanding Brazilian genre of baile funk. This captures the driving sound of urban celebrations. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the energy, adding everything from four-on-the-floor techno beats to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a especially hyperactive and overwhelmingly noisy forty-minute listening experience. Submit to the assault and Vieira's bold productions become strangely liberating.
6. Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release of disco beats and traditional Punjabi tunes is a newly appreciated treasure. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an strikingly engaging blend of the sharp sound of electronic keyboards and programmed drums with her ornate Indian classical vocal technique. Drum machine patterns mirrors the wavelike tones of the tabla, while synth lines parallels the classic sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. At other times, Latin-inflected grooves comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a up-tempo funky bass rhythm. It's a club-ready hybrid delivered more than ten years before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
Number Five: Enji – Sonor
Mongolian singer Enji's soft new release, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-inflected sound to offer some of her most wide-ranging music to date. Stepping outside her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs range from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodics of downtempo number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-inflected cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Showcasing a ensemble rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay intimate, inviting the listener into the tender soundscape of her unique voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – If There Is No Tomorrow
Inspired by the 60s heritage of Anatolian rock pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work with her band Grup Şimşek merges the distinctive buzz of the electrified saz with drifting keyboard and R&B-inflected lines. It's a 1970s throwback sound rooted in Yıldırım's strong high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated aesthetic. Yet, on classic Turkish songs such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group finds lively new territory. They create slinking, slow-burning grooves and powerful vocals that impart a new, quirky spin to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
Number Three: Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Sacred music, Czech harpsichord folksong and orchestral strings converge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary latest work. Orchestrating music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett traverse everything from the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic reggaeton-inspired beats of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim
