The Ten Top International Albums of This Past Year
Looking back on the musical landscape of international releases that defied expectations. Presenting a selection of ten notable albums that defined the year in music.
Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of insistent drumming might not seem the most accessible musical proposition. However, Indian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar transforms this insistent rhythm into a hypnotically captivating album. Directing an trio of three drummers, Korwar creates a complex percussive vocabulary across the record's 10 movements. The work channels minimalist concepts from Steve Reich alongside classical Indian rhythmic patterns, all anchored in the recurrence of a ongoing, pulsing figure. As the album progresses, this refrain starts to mirror the ceremonial rhythm of ritual music, luring the listener further into Korwar's unique percussive world.
9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Coming off an long absence, Arab singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a melancholy album of songs. She expands on the Arabic-sung, dub-tinged sound that established her as a fixture in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is gentle and introspective, singing tender melodies atop the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop groove of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a trembling, yearning vibrato over electronic lines with North African flavors and skittering electronic percussion. The production is minimal and restrained, yet this minimalism provides the perfect canvas for Hamdan's deeply felt lyricism to take center stage. It is truly deserving of the wait.
8. Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico producer Debit has a knack for uncanny reinterpretations of traditional music. On her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dubby take of the rhythmic Latin American musical style. Debit slows this sound even further, filtering its signature synths and syncopated rhythm through layers of distortion and hiss to produce a novel, menacing rhythm. Sometimes atmospheric and discomfiting, Debit morphs the celebratory dancefloor sound of cumbia into a persistent, ethereal afterimage.
7. The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sensory overload is the key term for the music of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a cacophony of sirens, explosive bass tones and screamed lyrics over the enduring Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This recreates the driving sound of favela street parties. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the ferocity, throwing in everything from four-on-the-floor techno beats to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a especially manic and overwhelmingly noisy forty-minute sonic journey. Submit to the cacophony and Vieira's brash productions become oddly exhilarating.
6. The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release of disco beats and Punjabi folk melodies is a rediscovered gem. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an remarkably engaging fusion of the metallic sound of 1980s synthesisers and drum machines with her melismatic Indian classical singing style. Drum machine patterns mirrors the wavelike tones of the tabla, while synth lines parallels the classic sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Elsewhere, Latin-inflected grooves is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a fast-paced disco bass groove. It's a dancefloor fusion delivered over a decade before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance
Mongolian vocalist Enji's delicate latest record, Sonor, expands on her jazz-inflected sound to offer some of her broadest music to date. Moving away from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces veer from the gentle jazz-pop 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. Featuring a full backing band rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains personal, inviting the listener into the tender acoustics of her singular voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow
Inspired by the 60s heritage of Anatolian rock established by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's third record with her band Grup Şimşek merges the electric jangle of the amplified traditional lute with drifting keyboard and R&B-inflected lines. It's a retro-70s aesthetic grounded in Yıldırım's strong high register and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. Yet, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group reaches dynamic new territory. They create smooth, downtempo grooves and soaring vocals that impart a novel, quirky twist to the Turkish psych sound.
Number Three: Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Sacred music, Eastern European folk melodies and symphonic arrangements merge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's stunning latest work. Arranging music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett traverse a vast range including the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated dembow rhythms of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim
