This 10 Greatest International Albums of This Past Year
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the global sounds that expanded horizons. We explore ten exceptional albums that characterized the year in music.
10. Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of repetitive drumming could sound like it isn't the most approachable musical proposition. However, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar transforms this insistent rhythm into a strangely alluring piece. Directing an trio of three drummers, Korwar creates a intricate percussive dialect across the record's ten sections. His composition draws from Steve Reich's phasing motifs combined with Indian classical phrasing, everything tethered in the repetition of a persistent, thrumming motif. Over its duration, this refrain evokes the ceremonial rhythm of ceremonial music, drawing the listener deeper into Korwar's unique percussive universe.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Following an eight-year break, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a melancholy album of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-language, dub-influenced aesthetic that established her as a fixture in the region's indie music scene since the nineties. Hamdan's vocal delivery is soft and thoughtful, singing delicate melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop beat of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a trembling, yearning vibrato against Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and rattling electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is lean and subtle, yet this minimalism offers the ideal environment for Hamdan's expressive compositions to shine through. This is a record that justifies the long anticipation.
Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Desaceleradas
Mexican producer Debit excels at haunting reworkings of archival audio. For her latest release, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dubby interpretation of the shuffling Latin American dance music genre. Debit decelerates this sound to a near-halt, running its signature synths and syncopated rhythm via sheets of sludge and hiss to generate a new, sinister rhythm. Periodically atmospheric and discomfiting, Debit morphs the joyous party music of cumbia into a lasting, ghostly echo.
Number Seven: DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sensory overload is the key term for the output of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a cacophony of alarms, explosive bass tones and shouted lyrics on top of the longstanding Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This captures the propulsive sound of favela street parties. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the ferocity, incorporating everything from techno kick drums to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly manic and punishingly loud 40-minute sonic journey. Give in to the noise and Vieira's unapologetic productions become strangely liberating.
Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a newly appreciated masterpiece. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an remarkably engaging fusion of the synthetic sound of electronic keyboards and drum machines with her ornate Indian classical vocal technique. Drum machine patterns mimics the undulating tones of the tabla, while synth lines parallels the traditional sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, Latin-inflected grooves comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a fast-paced disco bass groove. It's a party blend created over a decade before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
5. The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor
From Mongolia vocalist Enji's soft new release, Sonor, expands on her jazz-influenced sound to deliver some of her most wide-ranging music to date. Moving away from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces veer from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodics of downtempo number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a sprightly, funk-inflected cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a live band rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still personal, drawing the listener into the tender soundscape of her distinctive voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow
Channeling the 60s heritage of Anatolian rock pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work alongside her group fuses the distinctive buzz of the amplified traditional lute with dreamy keyboard and soulful tunes. It's a retro-70s aesthetic 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 nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group finds vibrant new territory. They create smooth, slow-burning grooves and powerful vocals that impart a novel, off-kilter interpretation to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
Number Three: The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Sacred music, Eastern European folk melodies and symphonic arrangements converge on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's stunning latest work. Arranging music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett explore 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. Ultimately, it is Pim
