The Ten Greatest Global Records of This Past Year
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the global music that expanded horizons. Presenting a selection of ten notable albums that characterized the year in music.
Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on cyclical percussion might not seem the most accessible musical proposition. But, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar transforms this insistent rhythm into a hypnotically captivating piece. Guiding an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar develops a complex percussive vocabulary across the record's 10 movements. His composition channels the phasing techniques of Steve Reich alongside traditional Indian musical phrasing, all anchored in the recurrence of a persistent, driving figure. Over its duration, this refrain evokes the trance-inducing cycles of ritual music, drawing the listener deeper into Korwar's singular percussive world.
9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Coming off an eight-year break, Arab singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan returns with a contemplative set of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-sung, dub-influenced sound that established her as a fixture in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is gentle and introspective, delivering tender melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop groove of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she adopts a trembling, yearning vibrato against north African synth lines and skittering electronic percussion. The production is lean and understated, yet this simplicity offers the ideal environment for Hamdan's expressive lyricism to shine through. This is a record well worth the long anticipation.
Number Eight: Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico electronic artist Debit excels at haunting reinterpretations of traditional music. For her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dub-inflected take of the shuffling Latin American dance genre. Debit drags this sound to a near-halt, processing its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm via sheets of sludge and static to generate a fresh, menacing groove. At turns ambient and discomfiting, Debit morphs the exuberant dancefloor sound of cumbia into a lasting, ghostly echo.
7. DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sensory overload is the defining principle for the music of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a cacophony of sirens, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics over the enduring Brazilian genre of baile funk. This captures the driving sound of neighborhood block parties. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the ferocity, incorporating everything from four-on-the-floor techno beats to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a especially manic and punishingly loud 40-minute listening experience. Give in to the noise and Vieira's unapologetic productions become unexpectedly exhilarating.
Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a reissued treasure. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an unusually captivating fusion of the synthetic sound of electronic keyboards and drum machines with her ornate Indian classical vocal technique. Electronic percussion echoes the rolling tones of the tabla, while synthesiser melody parallels the traditional sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. At other times, bossa nova rhythm is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a driving disco bass groove. It's a dancefloor fusion created more than ten years before the Asian Underground explosion.
5. The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor
Mongolian singer Enji's gentle new release, Sonor, develops her jazz-inflected sound to offer some of her most wide-ranging music to date. Stepping outside her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces travel from the gentle jazz-pop melodics of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a energetic, funk-inflected cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a ensemble rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still personal, drawing the listener into the gentle soundscape of her singular voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa
Channeling the psychedelic tradition of Turkish psychedelia established by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's third record with her band Grup Şimşek blends the metallic twang of the electrified saz with drifting Mellotron and R&B-inflected lines. It's a nostalgic vibe rooted in Yıldırım's powerful high register and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape aesthetic. However, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group finds dynamic new territory. They craft slinking, downtempo grooves and lifting vocals that lend a new, unconventional twist to the Turkish psych sound.
Number Three: Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Sacred music, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings converge on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's stunning fourth album. Orchestrating music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett explore a vast range including the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated dembow rhythms of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim
