This Ten Best International Releases of This Past Year
Looking back on the musical landscape of global releases that expanded horizons. Presenting a selection of ten exceptional albums that defined the year in music.
Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
A continuous, 40-minute suite of insistent percussion may not appear the most approachable listening experience. But, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar converts this insistent rhythm into a hypnotically captivating work. Leading an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar crafts a complex percussive language throughout the record's ten parts. The work draws from minimalist concepts from Steve Reich alongside Indian classical phrasing, everything tethered in the reiteration of a continual, pulsing motif. As the album progresses, this refrain evokes the trance-inducing cycles of ritual music, drawing the listener deeper into Korwar's singular percussive realm.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Following an hiatus of eight years, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a mournful set of songs. She expands on the Arabic-sung, dub-tinged style that established her as a fixture in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is soft and ruminative, singing delicate melodies atop the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rolling trip-hop groove of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a trembling, yearning vocal technique against north African synth lines and rattling electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is minimal and subtle, yet this minimalism offers the ideal canvas for Hamdan's emotive lyricism to resonate. It is well worth the long anticipation.
Number Eight: Debit – Desaceleradas
Mexican producer Debit specializes in haunting reworkings of historical sounds. On her latest release, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected version of the shuffling Latin American dance music genre. Debit drags this sound to a near-halt, processing its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm through layers of sludge and noise to create a new, menacing beat. Periodically atmospheric and unsettling, Debit morphs the celebratory dancefloor sound of cumbia into a enduring, ethereal memory.
Number Seven: The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sheer intensity is the defining principle for the output of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a cacophony of sirens, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the classic Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This captures the propulsive sound of favela street parties. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the intensity, adding everything from driving techno rhythms to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a especially hyperactive and punishingly loud 40-minute sonic journey. Give in to the cacophony and Vieira's unapologetic productions become unexpectedly freeing.
Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco music and Punjabi folk melodies is a reissued masterpiece. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an unusually engaging blend of the synthetic sound of 1980s synthesisers and programmed drums with her fluid Indian classical singing style. Electronic percussion mimics the rolling tones of the tabla, while synth lines replicates the traditional 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 fast-paced funky bass rhythm. It's a club-ready hybrid pioneered more than ten years before the Asian Underground explosion.
Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance
Mongolian singer Enji's gentle fourth album, Sonor, develops her jazz-inflected sound to deliver some of her most diverse music yet. Stepping outside her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks veer from the soft jazz-pop melodies 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-tinged cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a full backing band rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains intimate, inviting the listener into the warm soundscape of her unique voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa
Channeling the 1960s legacy of Anatolian rock established by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's new album with her band Grup Şimşek blends the metallic twang of the electrified saz with drifting Mellotron and classic soul melodies. It's a retro-70s aesthetic grounded in Yıldırım's commanding high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated aesthetic. Yet, on Turkish standards such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group finds vibrant new territory. They create slinking, downtempo grooves and powerful vocals that impart a new, off-kilter twist to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
Number Three: Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Sacred music, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings all come together on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary latest work. Orchestrating music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett traverse everything from the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated dembow rhythms of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim
