The 10 Top Worldwide Albums of This Past Year
Looking back on the musical landscape of worldwide sounds that pushed boundaries. Here is a countdown of ten remarkable albums that shaped the year in music.
10. Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
A continuous, 40-minute suite of repetitive drumming could sound like it isn't the easiest listening experience. But, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar converts this insistent rhythm into a hypnotically captivating album. Guiding an group of three drummers, Korwar creates a complex percussive language over the record's 10 movements. The album draws from minimalist concepts from Steve Reich as well as Indian classical phrasing, everything tethered in the reiteration of a continual, thrumming figure. Over its duration, this refrain starts to mirror the trance-inducing cycles of devotional music, luring the listener deeper into Korwar's singular percussive universe.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
After an long absence, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan returns with a contemplative album of songs. She expands on the Arabic-language, dub-tinged style that cemented her status in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is soft and thoughtful, delivering delicate melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop groove of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a trembling, longing vibrato over north African synth lines and clattering electronic percussion. The album's sound is sparse and subtle, yet this simplicity creates the perfect canvas for Hamdan's emotive songwriting to take center stage. It is that justifies the long anticipation.
Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Desaceleradas
From Mexico electronic artist Debit specializes in uncanny reimaginings of traditional music. For her new album, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dubby version of the shuffling Latin American dance music genre. Debit drags this sound down to a crawl, running its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm through sheets of murk and static to generate a novel, sinister groove. Periodically atmospheric and discomfiting, Debit transforms the joyous dancefloor sound of cumbia into a enduring, ethereal echo.
7. The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sensory overload is the defining principle for the output of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira piles a onslaught of sirens, explosive bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the longstanding Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This recreates the driving sound of urban celebrations. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the intensity, throwing in everything from driving techno rhythms to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly frenetic and punishingly loud 40-minute sonic journey. Submit to the assault and Vieira's bold productions become unexpectedly exhilarating.
6. The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a rediscovered treasure. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an unusually engaging blend of the metallic sound of 1980s synthesisers and drum machines with her melismatic Indian classical singing style. Drum machine patterns mimics the rolling tones of the tabla, while synthesiser melody doubles the classic sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. At other times, bossa nova rhythm is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a fast-paced disco bass groove. It's a party blend pioneered more than ten years before the Asian Underground explosion.
5. The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance
From Mongolia singer Enji's delicate new release, Sonor, expands on her jazz-influenced sound to present some of her most wide-ranging music yet. Departing from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks veer from the gentle jazz-pop melodics 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-inflected cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a ensemble rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still intimate, drawing the listener into the gentle acoustics of her singular voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow
Drawing on the psychedelic tradition of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's new album alongside her group fuses the distinctive buzz of the amplified traditional lute with drifting keyboard and classic soul melodies. It's a nostalgic vibe anchored in Yıldırım's commanding high register and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape aesthetic. But, on Turkish standards such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group ventures into lively new territory. They develop smooth, slow-burning grooves and soaring vocals that give a novel, unconventional twist to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Gregorian chants, Czech harpsichord folksong and orchestral strings converge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable fourth album. Arranging music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through everything from the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated dembow rhythms of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim
