The 10 Best International Records of This Past Year
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the global music that expanded horizons. We explore ten notable albums that defined the year in music.
10. Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on insistent drumming might not seem the easiest listening experience. However, Indian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar turns this insistent rhythm into a strangely alluring work. Directing an group of three drummers, Korwar develops a dense percussive language throughout the record's 10 movements. The album channels Steve Reich's phasing motifs as well as traditional Indian musical phrasing, everything tethered in the recurrence of a persistent, driving motif. As the album progresses, this refrain begins to emulate the trance-inducing cycles of ritual music, drawing the listener further into Korwar's singular percussive world.
9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
After an hiatus of eight years, Arab singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a mournful collection of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-sung, dub-tinged sound that cemented her status in the Arab alternative scene since the nineties. Hamdan's voice is gentle and ruminative, singing delicate melodies over 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 wavering, yearning vocal technique over Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and clattering electronic percussion. The album's sound is sparse and restrained, yet this austerity offers the ideal setting for Hamdan's emotive songwriting to take center stage. This is a record truly deserving of the wait.
Number Eight: Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico producer Debit excels at eerie reinterpretations of traditional music. For her latest release, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dubby interpretation of the shuffling Latin American musical style. Debit decelerates this sound to a near-halt, processing its signature synths and syncopated rhythm via sheets of murk and noise to generate a new, sinister beat. Periodically ambient and discomfiting, Debit converts the joyous party music of cumbia into a enduring, ethereal echo.
Number Seven: The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sensory overload is the key term for the music of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a tumult of alarms, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics on top of the enduring Brazilian genre of baile funk. This captures the propulsive sound of neighborhood block 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 chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly manic and deafeningly intense 40-minute listening experience. Surrender to the assault and Vieira's brash productions become oddly liberating.
Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco music and Punjabi folk melodies is a newly appreciated masterpiece. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an strikingly captivating combination of the synthetic sound of electronic keyboards and programmed drums with her melismatic classical Indian vocal technique. Electronic percussion mirrors the wavelike tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody parallels the classic sound of the reed organ 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 walking disco bassline. It's a club-ready hybrid pioneered more than ten years before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor
Mongolian vocalist Enji's delicate fourth album, Sonor, expands on her jazz-inflected sound to offer some of her broadest music so far. Stepping outside her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks range from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodics of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German spoken-word 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. Utilizing a ensemble rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains intimate, inviting the listener into the tender acoustics of her distinctive voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – Yarın Yoksa
Inspired by the 60s heritage of Anatolian rock pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work with her band Grup Şimşek fuses the electric jangle of the electrified saz with dreamy keyboard and soulful tunes. It's a 1970s throwback sound rooted in Yıldırım's strong high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. Yet, on Turkish standards such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group ventures into lively new territory. They develop sinuous, slow-burning grooves and powerful vocals that impart a novel, quirky interpretation to the Turkish psych sound.
Number Three: The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Catholic requiem mass music, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements converge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's stunning latest work. Orchestrating music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett explore everything from the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic reggaeton-inspired beats of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim
