This Ten Top Worldwide Records of This Past Year
Looking back on the musical landscape of worldwide music that expanded horizons. Presenting a selection of ten notable albums that shaped the year in music.
Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
A continuous, 40-minute suite of repetitive percussion may not appear the easiest musical proposition. But, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar transforms this insistent rhythm into a strangely alluring piece. Guiding an trio of three drummers, Korwar creates a intricate percussive vocabulary across the record's ten sections. The album references Steve Reich's phasing motifs combined with Indian classical phrasing, each grounded in the recurrence of a continual, driving figure. Over its duration, this refrain evokes the ceremonial rhythm of ceremonial music, pulling the listener deeper into Korwar's distinctive percussive realm.
9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
Following an hiatus of eight years, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan returns with a contemplative album of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-sung, dub-tinged aesthetic that established her as a fixture in the Arab alternative scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is soft and introspective, delivering soft melodies over the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop groove of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a wavering, longing vocal technique over north African synth lines and skittering electronic percussion. The production is lean and understated, yet this austerity provides the perfect canvas for Hamdan's expressive compositions to shine through. The album proves to be that justifies the long anticipation.
Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Desaceleradas
From Mexico producer Debit excels at haunting reinterpretations of traditional music. On her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected version of the rhythmic Latin American musical style. Debit drags this sound down to a crawl, filtering its signature synths and syncopated rhythm via sheets of murk and static to produce a novel, foreboding groove. Periodically ambient and uneasy, Debit morphs the joyous dancefloor sound of cumbia into a lasting, ghostly echo.
7. DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sheer intensity is the defining principle for the music of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a cacophony of alarms, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics over the longstanding Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This emulates the driving sound of urban celebrations. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the intensity, throwing in everything from four-on-the-floor techno beats to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a notably frenetic and deafeningly intense forty-minute sonic journey. Submit to the noise and Vieira's unapologetic productions become oddly exhilarating.
Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a rediscovered gem. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an unusually captivating combination of the synthetic sound of electronic keyboards and drum machines with her ornate Indian classical vocal technique. Electronic percussion mirrors the rolling tones of the tabla, while synthesiser melody parallels the traditional sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, bossa nova rhythm comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya boasts a up-tempo funky bass rhythm. It's a party blend delivered more than ten years before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
5. The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor
Mongolian singer Enji's gentle new release, Sonor, develops her jazz-inflected sound to offer some of her most diverse music to date. Stepping outside her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces veer from the soft jazz-pop melodics of downtempo number Ulbar to the German spoken-word 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. Showcasing a full backing band rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay intimate, drawing the listener into the warm soundscape of her distinctive voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa
Drawing on the psychedelic tradition of Anatolian rock established by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's new album alongside her group merges the electric jangle of the electrified saz with woozy keyboard and soulful tunes. It's a retro-70s aesthetic rooted in Yıldırım's strong high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. However, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group finds vibrant new territory. They develop smooth, downtempo grooves and soaring vocals that lend a new, off-kilter spin to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
Number Three: Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Catholic requiem mass music, Czech harpsichord folksong and orchestral strings all come together on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable latest work. Orchestrating music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through a vast range including the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated dembow rhythms of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim
