The Ten Top Global Records of This Past Year
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the global music that pushed boundaries. Here is a countdown of ten remarkable albums that characterized the year in music.
10. Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on cyclical drumming may not appear the easiest musical proposition. However, Indian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar turns this insistent rhythm into a hypnotically captivating album. Leading an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar crafts a dense percussive vocabulary over the record's 10 movements. The work references Steve Reich's phasing motifs alongside traditional Indian musical phrasing, all anchored in the reiteration of a ongoing, thrumming refrain. Over its duration, this refrain starts to mirror the trance-inducing cycles of ritual music, pulling the listener further into Korwar's unique percussive universe.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
Coming off an hiatus of eight years, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan returns with a melancholy collection of songs. She expands on the Arabic-language, dub-tinged sound that established her as a fixture in the region's indie music scene since the nineties. Hamdan's voice is gentle and thoughtful, delivering delicate melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop beat of Vows. During more energetic moments such as Shadia and Abyss, she adopts a wavering, longing vibrato over north African synth lines and skittering electronic percussion. The album's sound is lean and understated, yet this minimalism provides the perfect setting for Hamdan's emotive songwriting to shine through. This is a record truly deserving of the wait.
Number Eight: Debit – Desaceleradas
From Mexico electronic artist Debit excels at eerie reworkings of historical sounds. For her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby take of the shuffling Latin American musical style. Debit slows this sound down to a crawl, filtering its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm through layers of sludge and noise to generate a novel, foreboding groove. Periodically atmospheric and unsettling, Debit converts the joyous party music of cumbia into a persistent, spectral echo.
7. The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Maximalism is the defining principle for the records of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a tumult of sirens, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics over the classic Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This emulates the energetic sound of neighborhood block parties. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the intensity, throwing in everything from four-on-the-floor techno beats to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a especially frenetic and deafeningly intense forty-minute listening experience. Surrender to the noise and Vieira's bold productions become oddly liberating.
6. Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release of disco music and Punjabi folk melodies is a newly appreciated masterpiece. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an remarkably captivating combination of the synthetic sound of early synthesizers and drum machines with her fluid classical Indian vocal technique. Drum machine patterns echoes the undulating tones of the tabla, while synth lines parallels the traditional sound of the harmonium 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 boasts a up-tempo walking disco bassline. It's a party blend pioneered over a decade before the Asian Underground explosion.
Number Five: Enji – Sonor
From Mongolia vocalist Enji's gentle fourth album, Sonor, expands on her jazz-influenced sound to deliver some of her most diverse music to date. Stepping outside her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs travel from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodies of slow-burning 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 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a full backing band rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still close, inviting the listener into the tender acoustics of her distinctive voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow
Inspired by the 1960s legacy of Turkish psychedelia established by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's third record alongside her group blends the electric jangle of the electrified saz with woozy Mellotron and classic soul melodies. It's a 1970s throwback sound grounded in Yıldırım's commanding high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. However, on Turkish standards such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group ventures into vibrant new territory. They create smooth, downtempo grooves and soaring vocals that impart a fresh, off-kilter twist to the Turkish psych sound.
Number Three: Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Gregorian chants, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings converge on Colombian 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 interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated dembow rhythms of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim
