The 10 Most Outstanding International Releases of This Past Year
The past twelve months have offered a rich tapestry of global releases that pushed boundaries. We explore ten remarkable albums that characterized the year in music.
Number Ten: The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of insistent percussion could sound like it isn't the most approachable musical proposition. But, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar transforms this driving beat into a hypnotically captivating album. Directing an trio of three drummers, Korwar crafts a complex percussive language across the record's 10 movements. His composition references Steve Reich's phasing motifs combined with Indian classical phrasing, everything tethered in the recurrence of a persistent, thrumming refrain. Over its duration, this refrain begins to emulate the ceremonial rhythm of ceremonial music, pulling the listener deeper into Korwar's distinctive percussive realm.
9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
After an hiatus of eight years, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan returns with a mournful album of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-sung, dub-tinged aesthetic that established her as a fixture in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the nineties. Hamdan's voice is soft and introspective, singing delicate melodies over the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop beat of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a wavering, longing vibrato over electronic lines with North African flavors and rattling electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is lean and subtle, yet this simplicity creates the ideal setting for Hamdan's expressive compositions to shine through. This is a record truly deserving of the wait.
8. Debit – Desaceleradas
From Mexico producer Debit has a knack for uncanny reworkings of historical sounds. For her new album, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby take of the rhythmic Latin American musical style. Debit slows this sound even further, filtering its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm through layers of distortion and noise to produce a fresh, menacing rhythm. Periodically ambient and unsettling, Debit transforms the celebratory party music of cumbia into a enduring, spectral afterimage.
Number Seven: The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sensory overload is the operative word for the output of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira piles a onslaught of alarms, explosive bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the longstanding Brazilian genre of baile funk. This captures the energetic sound of urban celebrations. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the intensity, incorporating everything from techno kick drums to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a especially frenetic and overwhelmingly noisy forty-minute sonic journey. Submit to the cacophony and Vieira's bold productions become unexpectedly liberating.
Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release of disco beats and Punjabi folk melodies is a reissued treasure. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an remarkably compelling blend of the sharp sound of 1980s synthesisers and programmed drums with her ornate classical Indian vocal technique. Drum machine patterns 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. Elsewhere, Latin-inflected grooves takes center stage on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a up-tempo walking disco bassline. It's a club-ready hybrid pioneered over a decade before the Asian Underground explosion.
5. The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor
Mongolian vocalist Enji's gentle latest record, Sonor, expands on her jazz-influenced sound to present some of her most diverse music to date. Departing from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs range from the soft jazz-pop melodies of downtempo number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-inflected cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a live band rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains intimate, pulling the listener into the gentle soundscape of her singular voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – Yarın Yoksa
Drawing on the 60s heritage of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's new album alongside her group blends the electric jangle of the amplified traditional lute with woozy keyboard and classic soul melodies. It's a nostalgic vibe grounded in Yıldırım's commanding falsetto and influenced by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated sound. Yet, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group ventures into lively new territory. They develop slinking, downtempo grooves and lifting vocals that lend a new, off-kilter twist to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Gregorian chants, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings converge on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary latest work. Arranging music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through everything from the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic dembow rhythms of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim
