Our Ten Finest Global Records of This Past Year
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the global releases that defied expectations. We explore ten notable albums that characterized the year in music.
10. Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on insistent drumming might not seem the most approachable musical proposition. Yet, Indian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar converts this insistent rhythm into a strangely alluring work. Leading an group of three drummers, Korwar creates a dense percussive language throughout the record's ten parts. The work channels the phasing techniques of Steve Reich alongside classical Indian rhythmic patterns, everything tethered in the repetition of a continual, pulsing figure. Over its duration, this refrain begins to emulate the ceremonial rhythm of ceremonial music, pulling the listener deeper into Korwar's distinctive percussive world.
9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
After an hiatus of eight years, Lebanese vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a contemplative set of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-language, dub-influenced aesthetic that established her as a fixture in the Arab alternative scene since the nineties. Hamdan's vocal delivery is quiet and ruminative, singing delicate melodies atop the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop beat of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a wavering, longing vocal technique against Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and rattling electronic percussion. The album's sound is minimal and understated, yet this austerity provides the ideal environment for Hamdan's expressive lyricism to shine through. It is well worth the long anticipation.
8. Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico producer Debit has a knack for uncanny reinterpretations of historical sounds. For her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 90s style 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 via veils of sludge and noise to create a new, foreboding rhythm. Periodically ambient and discomfiting, Debit converts the celebratory dancefloor sound of cumbia into a persistent, spectral memory.
7. DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Maximalism is the defining principle for the records of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira piles a onslaught of sirens, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics over the classic Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This emulates the driving sound of favela street parties. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the ferocity, throwing in everything from driving techno rhythms to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly hyperactive and deafeningly intense forty-minute sonic journey. Give in to the noise and Vieira's unapologetic productions become strangely freeing.
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 newly appreciated gem. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an remarkably engaging combination of the synthetic sound of electronic keyboards and programmed drums with her ornate classical Indian singing style. Drum machine patterns mimics the wavelike tones of the tabla, while synthesiser melody parallels the classic 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 channels a up-tempo funky bass rhythm. It's a dancefloor fusion created more than ten years before the Asian Underground explosion.
5. The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance
Mongolian vocalist Enji's delicate fourth album, Sonor, develops her jazz-influenced sound to offer some of her broadest music so far. Departing from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs travel from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodies of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-inflected cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a ensemble rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still close, pulling the listener into the tender acoustics of her unique voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow
Drawing on the psychedelic tradition of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's new album alongside her group blends the distinctive buzz of the amplified traditional lute with woozy Mellotron and classic soul melodies. It's a retro-70s aesthetic grounded in Yıldırım's commanding high register and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape aesthetic. But, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group finds vibrant new territory. They craft smooth, slow-burning grooves and lifting vocals that give a new, quirky twist to the Turkish psych sound.
Number Three: Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Gregorian chants, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements merge on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable fourth album. Orchestrating music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through a vast range including the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated reggaeton-inspired beats of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim
