Our Ten Best International Releases of This Past Year
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the global music that expanded horizons. Here is a countdown of ten notable albums that shaped the year in music.
Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of repetitive percussion could sound like it isn't the most approachable musical proposition. But, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar converts this persistent pulse into a strangely alluring work. Guiding an group of three drummers, Korwar develops a dense percussive language throughout the record's 10 movements. The work references the phasing techniques of Steve Reich combined with traditional Indian musical phrasing, each grounded in the reiteration of a continual, driving figure. As the album progresses, this refrain evokes the trance-inducing cycles of devotional music, drawing the listener further into Korwar's singular percussive world.
Number Nine: The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
After an long absence, Arab singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan returns with a melancholy collection of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-sung, dub-tinged style that cemented her status in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is soft and ruminative, delivering delicate melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rolling trip-hop beat of Vows. During more energetic moments such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a quivering, yearning vibrato over north African synth lines and skittering electronic percussion. The album's sound is sparse and understated, yet this minimalism provides the perfect setting for Hamdan's emotive songwriting to take center stage. The album proves to be well worth the long anticipation.
8. The Mexican Producer Debit – Desaceleradas
From Mexico electronic artist Debit specializes in haunting reworkings of archival audio. For her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected version of the shuffling Latin American musical style. Debit slows this sound down to a crawl, processing its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm through veils of sludge and noise to generate a fresh, menacing groove. At turns atmospheric and uneasy, Debit transforms the joyous party music of cumbia into a lasting, ethereal memory.
Number Seven: The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Maximalism is the defining principle for the music of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a cacophony of alarms, explosive bass tones and shouted lyrics over the enduring Brazilian genre of baile funk. This emulates the driving sound of urban celebrations. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the intensity, throwing in everything from driving techno rhythms to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly hyperactive and deafeningly intense 40-minute sonic journey. Submit to the cacophony and Vieira's brash productions become unexpectedly freeing.
Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco beats and traditional Punjabi tunes is a reissued treasure. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an strikingly compelling blend of the metallic sound of early synthesizers and programmed drums with her ornate Indian classical singing style. Electronic percussion mimics the rolling 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 driving disco bass groove. It's a club-ready hybrid created more than ten years before the Asian Underground explosion.
5. The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor
Mongolian vocalist Enji's soft fourth album, Sonor, expands on her jazz-inflected sound to deliver some of her most diverse music to date. Stepping outside her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs range from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodics of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a sprightly, funk-tinged cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a full backing band rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains intimate, pulling the listener into the warm soundscape of her unique voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – 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 new album with her band Grup Şimşek blends the distinctive buzz of the amplified traditional lute with dreamy keyboard and soulful tunes. It's a 1970s throwback sound anchored in Yıldırım's strong high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape aesthetic. But, on Turkish standards such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group finds lively new territory. They develop slinking, downtempo grooves and powerful vocals that lend a fresh, off-kilter twist to the Turkish psych sound.
3. Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Gregorian chants, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings merge on Colombian-born 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 dramatic interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated reggaeton-inspired beats of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim
