The Ten Top Worldwide Releases of This Past Year
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the worldwide releases that expanded horizons. Here is a countdown of ten exceptional albums that defined the year in music.
10. The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
A continuous, 40-minute suite of insistent drumming could sound like it isn't the easiest listening experience. But, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar turns this persistent pulse into a hypnotically captivating piece. Guiding an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar creates a dense percussive language throughout the record's ten parts. The work draws from Steve Reich's phasing motifs combined with Indian classical phrasing, each grounded in the reiteration of a persistent, driving motif. As the album progresses, this refrain begins to emulate the hypnotic repetition of ceremonial music, pulling the listener further into Korwar's singular percussive realm.
Number Nine: The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Coming off an eight-year break, Lebanese vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a melancholy album of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-sung, dub-influenced style that cemented her status in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the nineties. Hamdan's vocal delivery is gentle and introspective, delivering tender melodies over the string arrangements 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 clattering electronic percussion. The album's sound is minimal and restrained, yet this simplicity provides the ideal environment for Hamdan's expressive songwriting to shine through. This is a record that justifies the wait.
Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico producer Debit has a knack for haunting reworkings of traditional music. For her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dub-inflected interpretation of the shuffling Latin American dance genre. Debit slows this sound to a near-halt, running its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm via sheets of sludge and static to produce a new, menacing groove. Periodically atmospheric and discomfiting, Debit converts the celebratory dancefloor sound of cumbia into a lasting, spectral afterimage.
Number Seven: DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sheer intensity is the defining principle for the records of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a onslaught of alarms, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics over the enduring Brazilian genre of baile funk. This recreates the propulsive sound of urban celebrations. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the intensity, throwing in everything from techno kick drums to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly frenetic and punishingly loud forty-minute listening experience. Submit to the assault and Vieira's brash productions become oddly freeing.
6. Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco beats and traditional Punjabi tunes is a reissued treasure. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an remarkably engaging blend of the sharp sound of 1980s synthesisers and programmed drums with her ornate classical Indian singing style. Drum machine patterns mirrors the undulating tones of the traditional drums, while synth lines doubles the classic sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. At other times, Latin-inflected grooves takes center stage on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a fast-paced walking disco bassline. It's a club-ready hybrid delivered more than ten years before the Asian Underground explosion.
5. Enji – Resonance
From Mongolia singer Enji's gentle latest record, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-influenced sound to deliver some of her most wide-ranging music to date. Departing from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks veer from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodies of downtempo number Ulbar to the German-language narration 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 live band rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still close, inviting the listener into the gentle acoustics of her unique voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – If There Is No Tomorrow
Inspired by the psychedelic tradition of Anatolian rock pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's new album with her band Grup Şimşek fuses the electric jangle of the amplified traditional lute with drifting keyboard and R&B-inflected lines. It's a nostalgic vibe grounded in Yıldırım's commanding falsetto and influenced by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated aesthetic. But, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group ventures into vibrant new territory. They develop sinuous, downtempo grooves and lifting vocals that give a new, quirky spin to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
Number Three: Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Sacred music, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements all come together on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary fourth album. Orchestrating music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett explore a vast range including the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic dembow rhythms of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim
