This 10 Most Outstanding International Releases of This Past Year
Looking back on the musical landscape of worldwide sounds that expanded horizons. Presenting a selection of ten exceptional albums that defined the year in music.
Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on insistent drumming may not appear the most approachable listening experience. But, Indian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar converts this driving beat into a strangely alluring piece. Directing an group of three drummers, Korwar crafts a complex percussive dialect over the record's ten sections. His composition references the phasing techniques of Steve Reich combined with Indian classical phrasing, all anchored in the recurrence of a ongoing, pulsing figure. The longer one listens, this refrain starts to mirror the ceremonial rhythm of ritual music, pulling the listener deeper into Korwar's distinctive percussive realm.
Number Nine: The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Following an long absence, Arab singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a mournful album of songs. She expands on the Arabic-language, dub-tinged aesthetic that established her as a fixture in the Arab alternative scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is quiet and thoughtful, delivering soft melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rolling trip-hop beat of Vows. During more energetic moments such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a wavering, yearning vibrato over Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and clattering electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is lean and restrained, yet this austerity provides the ideal setting for Hamdan's deeply felt lyricism to take center stage. The album proves to be truly deserving of the long anticipation.
Number Eight: Debit – Slowed Down
Mexican electronic artist Debit excels at eerie reworkings of historical sounds. On her latest release, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dub-inflected take of the shuffling Latin American musical style. Debit slows this sound down to a crawl, processing its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm via layers of sludge and static to produce a novel, foreboding beat. Sometimes ambient and unsettling, Debit transforms the celebratory dancefloor sound of cumbia into a lasting, spectral afterimage.
Number Seven: The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sheer intensity is the operative word for the records of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a tumult of sirens, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics on top of the enduring Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This captures the energetic sound of favela street parties. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the intensity, throwing in everything from techno kick drums to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a notably frenetic and punishingly loud forty-minute listening experience. Surrender to the assault and Vieira's brash productions become oddly exhilarating.
Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a rediscovered masterpiece. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an unusually compelling fusion of the metallic sound of electronic keyboards and programmed drums with her fluid classical Indian vocal technique. Electronic percussion mirrors the rolling tones of the traditional drums, while synth lines replicates the traditional sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, bossa nova rhythm takes center stage on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a driving funky bass rhythm. It's a club-ready hybrid created over a decade before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
5. Enji – Sonor
Mongolian vocalist Enji's soft new release, Sonor, expands on her jazz-influenced sound to offer some of her broadest music so far. Moving away from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs veer from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodics of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a energetic, funk-inflected cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a ensemble rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay intimate, drawing the listener into the tender soundscape of her unique voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – Yarın Yoksa
Drawing on the psychedelic tradition of Turkish psychedelia established by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's new album alongside her group fuses the electric jangle of the electrified saz with dreamy keyboard and soulful tunes. It's a retro-70s aesthetic anchored in Yıldırım's strong high register and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape aesthetic. However, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group reaches lively new territory. They develop sinuous, slow-burning grooves and soaring vocals that impart a novel, quirky twist to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
Number Three: Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Gregorian chants, Czech harpsichord folksong and orchestral strings all come together on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable latest work. Arranging music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through a vast range including the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic reggaeton-inspired beats of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim
