The 10 Finest International Releases of This Past Year
Looking back on the musical landscape of worldwide sounds that expanded horizons. Here is a countdown of ten exceptional 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 listening experience. But, Indian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar transforms this driving beat into a unexpectedly magnetic work. Guiding an trio of three drummers, Korwar develops a complex percussive vocabulary throughout the record's 10 movements. The album channels Steve Reich's phasing motifs combined with traditional Indian musical phrasing, everything tethered in the repetition of a ongoing, driving refrain. The longer one listens, this refrain starts to mirror the ceremonial rhythm of ritual music, luring the listener deeper into Korwar's singular percussive realm.
9. The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
Coming off an hiatus of eight years, Lebanese vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a contemplative collection of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-language, dub-tinged sound that made her a staple in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is soft and ruminative, singing 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 uses a wavering, longing vibrato against Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and skittering electronic percussion. The album's sound is sparse and subtle, yet this minimalism provides the perfect environment for Hamdan's deeply felt songwriting to shine through. It is truly deserving of the long anticipation.
Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down
Mexican producer Debit has a knack for uncanny reimaginings of traditional music. On her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dub-inflected version of the shuffling Latin American dance music genre. Debit drags this sound to a near-halt, filtering its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm through layers of distortion and hiss to produce a new, foreboding beat. At turns ambient and discomfiting, Debit transforms the celebratory party music of cumbia into a enduring, ghostly afterimage.
Number Seven: DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sensory overload is the key term for the records of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a cacophony of sirens, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics on top of the enduring Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This recreates the energetic sound of urban celebrations. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the intensity, throwing in everything from techno kick drums to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a especially hyperactive and punishingly loud forty-minute listening experience. Submit to the cacophony and Vieira's unapologetic productions become oddly exhilarating.
Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco beats and Punjabi folk melodies is a rediscovered treasure. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an remarkably engaging combination of the sharp sound of early synthesizers and drum machines with her ornate classical Indian singing style. Electronic percussion mirrors the undulating tones of the tabla, while synth lines replicates the classic 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 boasts a driving disco bass groove. It's a club-ready hybrid pioneered over a decade before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
5. The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor
Mongolian singer Enji's delicate fourth album, Sonor, develops her jazz-influenced sound to present some of her most wide-ranging music so far. Moving away from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks veer from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodies of downtempo number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a sprightly, funk-tinged cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a ensemble rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay intimate, inviting the listener into the warm acoustics of her distinctive voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow
Inspired by the 1960s legacy of Anatolian rock established by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's new album alongside her group fuses the electric jangle of the amplified traditional lute with dreamy Mellotron and soulful tunes. It's a retro-70s aesthetic anchored in Yıldırım's strong high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated aesthetic. But, on Turkish standards such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group ventures into vibrant new territory. They craft slinking, downtempo grooves and powerful vocals that lend a novel, unconventional interpretation to the Turkish psych sound.
Number Three: Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Gregorian chants, Eastern European folk melodies and symphonic arrangements all come together on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable fourth album. 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 theatrical counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated reggaeton-inspired beats of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim
