This 10 Most Outstanding International Albums of This Past Year
Looking back on the musical landscape of worldwide releases that pushed boundaries. Here is a countdown of ten notable albums that defined the year in music.
Number Ten: The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
A continuous, 40-minute suite of insistent drumming may not appear the most approachable musical proposition. However, Indian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar converts this persistent pulse into a unexpectedly magnetic piece. Guiding an trio of three drummers, Korwar crafts a intricate percussive dialect over the record's ten sections. The work references minimalist concepts from Steve Reich alongside classical Indian rhythmic patterns, everything tethered in the repetition of a ongoing, driving figure. Over its duration, this refrain begins to emulate the trance-inducing cycles of ceremonial music, drawing the listener further into Korwar's unique percussive realm.
9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Coming off an long absence, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a mournful set of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-language, dub-influenced sound that established her as a fixture in the Arab alternative scene since the nineties. Hamdan's vocal delivery is gentle and ruminative, delivering delicate melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop beat of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a wavering, longing vocal technique over Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and skittering electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is lean and subtle, yet this simplicity provides the ideal canvas for Hamdan's expressive songwriting to take center stage. This is a record truly deserving of the wait.
Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down
Mexican electronic artist Debit excels at uncanny reinterpretations of archival audio. For her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected interpretation of the rhythmic Latin American dance music genre. Debit slows this sound down to a crawl, running its signature synths and off-beat rhythm through veils of murk and hiss to create a fresh, foreboding rhythm. Periodically ambient and discomfiting, Debit transforms the celebratory party music of cumbia into a lasting, ethereal echo.
7. The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Maximalism is the operative word for the output of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a onslaught of sirens, explosive bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the classic Brazilian genre of baile funk. This captures the propulsive sound of favela street parties. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the intensity, adding everything from techno kick drums to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly frenetic and deafeningly intense forty-minute sonic journey. Give in to the assault and Vieira's unapologetic productions become oddly liberating.
Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco beats and Punjabi folk melodies is a reissued masterpiece. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an unusually compelling fusion of the synthetic sound of 1980s synthesisers and drum machines with her melismatic Indian classical singing style. Electronic percussion echoes the undulating tones of the traditional drums, while synth lines parallels the classic sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, Latin-inflected grooves takes center stage on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya boasts a fast-paced funky bass rhythm. It's a dancefloor fusion created more than ten years before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
5. The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor
From Mongolia vocalist Enji's delicate new release, Sonor, develops her jazz-inflected sound to present some of her most diverse music yet. Moving away from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs range from the soft jazz-pop 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-tinged cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Showcasing a ensemble rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still intimate, inviting the listener into the warm soundscape of her distinctive voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa
Inspired by the 60s heritage of Anatolian rock pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's new album alongside her group merges the metallic twang of the amplified traditional lute with woozy keyboard and R&B-inflected lines. It's a retro-70s aesthetic rooted in Yıldırım's powerful falsetto and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. Yet, on classic Turkish songs such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group ventures into dynamic new territory. They develop sinuous, downtempo grooves and lifting vocals that impart a new, unconventional spin to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Sacred music, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements converge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable latest work. Orchestrating 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 theatrical interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated reggaeton-inspired beats of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim