This 10 Finest International Albums of This Past Year
Looking back on the musical landscape of global releases that expanded horizons. Here is a countdown of ten remarkable 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 insistent drumming might not seem the easiest listening experience. However, Indian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar turns this driving beat into a unexpectedly magnetic work. Directing an trio of three drummers, Korwar creates a complex percussive vocabulary throughout the record's ten parts. The album references minimalist concepts from Steve Reich alongside traditional Indian musical phrasing, everything tethered in the reiteration of a ongoing, thrumming figure. The longer one listens, this refrain starts to mirror the ceremonial rhythm of ritual music, pulling the listener deeper into Korwar's singular percussive world.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
After an eight-year break, Arab singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan returns with a contemplative set of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-sung, dub-influenced sound that made her a staple in the Arab alternative scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is quiet and introspective, delivering delicate melodies over the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop beat of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she adopts a trembling, longing vocal technique over electronic lines with North African flavors and skittering electronic percussion. The production is minimal and subtle, yet this austerity offers the ideal environment for Hamdan's emotive songwriting to take center stage. This is a record that justifies the wait.
Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Desaceleradas
From Mexico producer Debit has a knack for eerie reworkings of archival audio. For her new album, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby version of the rhythmic Latin American musical style. Debit slows this sound down to a crawl, running its signature synths and syncopated rhythm through sheets of distortion and noise to generate a fresh, menacing groove. Periodically ambient and unsettling, Debit converts the joyous party music of cumbia into a enduring, ghostly afterimage.
Number Seven: The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sheer intensity is the key term for the records 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 driving sound of urban celebrations. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the energy, incorporating everything from driving techno rhythms to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly manic and overwhelmingly noisy 40-minute listening experience. Submit to the assault and Vieira's brash productions become strangely liberating.
6. Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release of disco music and Punjabi folk melodies is a rediscovered gem. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an strikingly captivating fusion of the metallic sound of electronic keyboards and drum machines with her melismatic Indian classical singing style. Electronic percussion mirrors the rolling tones of the tabla, while synthesiser melody doubles 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 driving funky bass rhythm. It's a dancefloor fusion pioneered more than ten years before the rise of Asian Underground music.
Number Five: Enji – Resonance
From Mongolia vocalist Enji's soft new release, Sonor, develops her jazz-influenced sound to present some of her broadest music so far. Departing from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces travel from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodics of downtempo 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 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Showcasing a ensemble rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still personal, drawing the listener into the tender soundscape of her singular voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – Yarın Yoksa
Drawing on the psychedelic tradition of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's new album with her band Grup Şimşek fuses the distinctive buzz of the electrified saz with dreamy keyboard and classic soul melodies. It's a nostalgic vibe rooted 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 vibrant new territory. They develop slinking, slow-burning grooves and lifting vocals that give a fresh, quirky interpretation to the Turkish psych sound.
3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Catholic requiem mass music, Eastern European folk melodies and symphonic arrangements merge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary fourth album. Orchestrating music for the sixty-member 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 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
