The 10 Finest Global Albums of This Past Year
Looking back on the musical landscape of global sounds that pushed boundaries. Presenting a selection of ten remarkable albums that characterized the year in music.
Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
A continuous, 40-minute suite of repetitive percussion may not appear the most accessible listening experience. Yet, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar converts this driving beat into a hypnotically captivating piece. Guiding an trio of three drummers, Korwar creates a dense percussive dialect over the record's 10 movements. The album draws from minimalist concepts from Steve Reich combined with traditional Indian musical phrasing, all anchored in the repetition of a persistent, thrumming refrain. As the album progresses, this refrain evokes the ceremonial rhythm of devotional music, pulling the listener further into Korwar's singular percussive realm.
Number Nine: The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Following an eight-year break, Lebanese vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a melancholy album of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-language, dub-influenced sound that established her as a fixture in the Arab alternative scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is quiet and ruminative, singing soft melodies over the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rolling trip-hop groove of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a wavering, yearning vocal technique against Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and rattling electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is minimal and restrained, yet this minimalism creates the ideal environment for Hamdan's deeply felt lyricism to take center stage. It is well worth the wait.
8. Debit – Slowed Down
Mexican producer Debit has a knack for eerie reimaginings of traditional music. On her new album, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dub-inflected version of the rhythmic Latin American dance genre. Debit decelerates this sound down to a crawl, running its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm through layers of sludge and hiss to generate a fresh, sinister rhythm. Sometimes atmospheric and uneasy, Debit morphs the celebratory party music of cumbia into a enduring, ethereal echo.
7. The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sensory overload is the key term for the music of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira piles a onslaught of alarms, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics over the classic Brazilian genre of baile funk. This recreates the driving sound of favela street parties. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the energy, adding everything from four-on-the-floor techno beats to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a notably frenetic and deafeningly intense 40-minute sonic journey. Give in to the cacophony and Vieira's brash productions become unexpectedly freeing.
Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release of disco music and Punjabi folk melodies is a rediscovered gem. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an remarkably engaging combination of the metallic sound of early synthesizers and programmed drums with her ornate Indian classical singing style. Electronic percussion mirrors the wavelike tones of the tabla, while synth lines parallels the traditional sound of the harmonium 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 boasts a fast-paced walking disco bassline. It's a dancefloor fusion created over a decade before the Asian Underground explosion.
5. Enji – Sonor
Mongolian vocalist Enji's soft fourth album, Sonor, develops her jazz-inflected sound to deliver some of her broadest music to date. Moving away from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces travel from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodies of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a energetic, funk-inflected cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a live band rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay close, pulling the listener into the warm acoustics of her distinctive voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa
Inspired by the psychedelic tradition of Turkish psychedelia established by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's third record alongside her group merges the electric jangle of the electrified saz with drifting Mellotron and soulful tunes. It's a 1970s throwback sound anchored in Yıldırım's strong high register and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. But, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group ventures into vibrant new territory. They develop smooth, slow-burning grooves and soaring vocals that impart a new, off-kilter interpretation to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
Number Three: Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Sacred music, Eastern European folk melodies and symphonic arrangements all come together on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's stunning latest work. Arranging music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett explore a vast range including the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated dembow rhythms of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim
