Our 10 Best Global Albums of This Past Year
Looking back on the musical landscape of global music that expanded horizons. Here is a countdown of ten remarkable albums that characterized the year in music.
10. The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
A continuous, 40-minute suite of cyclical percussion may not appear the easiest listening experience. But, Indian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar turns this insistent rhythm into a strangely alluring piece. Guiding an group of three drummers, Korwar creates a intricate percussive vocabulary over the record's ten sections. His composition channels minimalist concepts from Steve Reich combined with traditional Indian musical phrasing, all anchored in the repetition of a continual, pulsing figure. As the album progresses, this refrain starts to mirror the trance-inducing cycles of ceremonial music, luring the listener deeper into Korwar's singular percussive universe.
9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
After an long absence, Lebanese vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a mournful collection of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-language, dub-tinged sound that made her a staple in the region's indie music scene since the nineties. Hamdan's voice is gentle and ruminative, delivering tender melodies atop the bowing strings 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 trembling, longing vocal technique over electronic lines with North African flavors and rattling electronic percussion. The album's sound is minimal and understated, yet this simplicity offers the ideal setting for Hamdan's emotive compositions to take center stage. It is well worth the long anticipation.
8. The Mexican Producer Debit – Desaceleradas
From Mexico electronic artist Debit has a knack for eerie reinterpretations of traditional music. For her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dubby version of the rhythmic Latin American dance music genre. Debit drags this sound down to a crawl, running its signature synths and off-beat rhythm through layers of sludge and static to generate a novel, sinister rhythm. Periodically ambient and discomfiting, Debit converts the exuberant party music of cumbia into a persistent, ghostly memory.
Number Seven: DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Maximalism is the defining principle for the music of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a onslaught of sirens, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the enduring Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This captures the propulsive sound of favela street parties. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the intensity, incorporating everything from techno kick drums to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly hyperactive and overwhelmingly noisy 40-minute sonic journey. Surrender to the noise and Vieira's bold productions become oddly freeing.
6. Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a newly appreciated masterpiece. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an strikingly captivating combination of the sharp sound of electronic keyboards and drum machines with her ornate Indian classical vocal technique. Drum machine patterns mirrors the undulating tones of the traditional drums, while synth lines parallels the traditional sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. At other times, Latin-inflected grooves takes center stage on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya boasts a fast-paced disco bass groove. It's a dancefloor fusion pioneered over a decade before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
5. Enji – Sonor
Mongolian vocalist Enji's delicate latest record, Sonor, develops her jazz-inflected sound to present some of her broadest music yet. Departing from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks veer from the soft jazz-pop melodies of slow-burning 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 usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay personal, inviting the listener into the warm acoustics of her unique voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – If There Is No Tomorrow
Drawing on the 1960s legacy of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's new album with her band Grup Şimşek blends the metallic twang of the amplified traditional lute with dreamy keyboard and R&B-inflected lines. It's a retro-70s aesthetic rooted in Yıldırım's commanding falsetto and shaped by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated aesthetic. But, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group ventures into vibrant new territory. They develop smooth, slow-burning grooves and powerful vocals that give a novel, quirky spin to the Turkish psych sound.
3. Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Sacred music, Eastern European folk melodies 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 traverse everything from the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated dembow rhythms of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim
