The Ten Best Global Records of This Past Year
Looking back on the musical landscape of worldwide releases that expanded horizons. We explore ten notable albums that defined the year in music.
10. The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
A continuous, 40-minute suite of cyclical drumming might not seem the most approachable listening experience. But, Indian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar transforms this driving beat into a hypnotically captivating piece. Guiding an group of three drummers, Korwar crafts a intricate percussive dialect throughout the record's ten sections. The work channels the phasing techniques of Steve Reich as well as traditional Indian musical phrasing, everything tethered in the recurrence of a persistent, thrumming motif. Over its duration, this refrain begins to emulate the trance-inducing cycles of ceremonial music, luring the listener further into Korwar's distinctive percussive realm.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
Following an hiatus of eight years, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a contemplative collection of songs. She expands on the Arabic-sung, dub-tinged sound that established her as a fixture in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the nineties. Hamdan's voice is gentle and ruminative, delivering soft melodies over the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop groove of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a wavering, longing vocal technique over electronic lines with North African flavors and skittering electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is lean and understated, yet this minimalism creates the ideal canvas for Hamdan's expressive lyricism to resonate. The album proves to be truly deserving of the wait.
Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down
Mexican producer Debit excels at eerie reworkings of traditional music. On her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby version of the shuffling Latin American dance music genre. Debit drags this sound down to a crawl, filtering its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm through veils of murk and noise to generate a new, foreboding groove. Sometimes ambient and uneasy, Debit morphs the celebratory party music of cumbia into a enduring, spectral memory.
7. DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Maximalism is the key term for the output of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a onslaught of sirens, explosive bass tones and shouted lyrics on top of the enduring Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This captures the driving sound of urban celebrations. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the intensity, adding everything from driving techno rhythms to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a notably manic and deafeningly intense forty-minute sonic journey. Submit to the noise and Vieira's unapologetic productions become oddly exhilarating.
Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco beats and traditional Punjabi tunes is a rediscovered masterpiece. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an unusually engaging combination of the metallic sound of electronic keyboards and programmed drums with her fluid Indian classical singing style. Electronic percussion mirrors the undulating tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody parallels the traditional sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Elsewhere, bossa nova rhythm is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya boasts a driving walking disco bassline. It's a dancefloor fusion pioneered over a decade before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance
Mongolian vocalist Enji's soft latest record, Sonor, develops her jazz-inflected sound to offer some of her most wide-ranging music to date. Stepping outside her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks veer from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodics of downtempo number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a sprightly, funk-tinged cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a full backing band rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still intimate, drawing the listener into the tender soundscape of her singular voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow
Drawing on the psychedelic tradition of Turkish psychedelia established by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's third record with her band Grup Şimşek blends the electric jangle of the amplified traditional lute with drifting Mellotron and soulful tunes. It's a nostalgic vibe rooted in Yıldırım's strong falsetto and shaped by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated aesthetic. Yet, on Turkish standards such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group reaches lively new territory. They develop sinuous, slow-burning grooves and powerful vocals that lend a novel, off-kilter interpretation to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Gregorian chants, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements all come together on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable fourth album. Orchestrating 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 interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated reggaeton-inspired beats of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim
