Our 10 Top International Releases of This Past Year
The past twelve months have offered a rich tapestry of global sounds that defied expectations. Presenting a selection of ten remarkable albums that characterized the year in music.
Number Ten: The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of repetitive drumming may not appear the most accessible musical proposition. However, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar turns this persistent pulse into a hypnotically captivating album. Directing an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar develops a intricate percussive dialect across the record's ten sections. His composition references the phasing techniques of Steve Reich as well as classical Indian rhythmic patterns, everything tethered in the repetition of a continual, driving refrain. As the album progresses, this refrain starts to mirror the trance-inducing cycles of ritual music, drawing the listener further into Korwar's singular percussive realm.
9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
Following an long absence, Lebanese vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a contemplative album of songs. She expands on the Arabic-sung, dub-influenced style that made her a staple in the Arab alternative scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is quiet and introspective, delivering delicate melodies over the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop groove of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a quivering, longing vibrato over electronic lines with North African flavors and clattering electronic percussion. The production is minimal and restrained, yet this simplicity provides the ideal canvas for Hamdan's emotive compositions to resonate. It is truly deserving of the long anticipation.
8. Debit – Slowed Down
Mexican electronic artist Debit has a knack for haunting reimaginings of archival audio. For her new album, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dub-inflected take of the rhythmic Latin American musical style. Debit decelerates this sound down to a crawl, running its signature synths and syncopated rhythm via sheets of sludge and hiss to produce a new, menacing beat. At turns ambient and uneasy, Debit morphs the celebratory party music of cumbia into a lasting, spectral afterimage.
7. DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sheer intensity is the defining principle for the records of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a cacophony of alarms, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics over the enduring Brazilian genre of baile funk. This recreates the energetic sound of urban celebrations. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the intensity, incorporating everything from techno kick drums to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a notably frenetic and overwhelmingly noisy forty-minute sonic journey. Submit to the assault and Vieira's bold productions become oddly freeing.
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. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an strikingly captivating combination of the sharp sound of 1980s synthesisers and programmed drums with her melismatic classical Indian vocal technique. Electronic percussion mimics the wavelike tones of the tabla, while synthesiser melody parallels the classic sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Elsewhere, Latin-inflected grooves comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a fast-paced funky bass rhythm. It's a party blend delivered over a decade before the Asian Underground explosion.
5. The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance
From Mongolia singer Enji's delicate fourth album, Sonor, develops her jazz-influenced sound to deliver some of her broadest music to date. Moving away from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks veer from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodies of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-inflected cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a live band rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still close, drawing the listener into the warm acoustics of her unique voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa
Channeling the psychedelic tradition of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's third record alongside her group merges the distinctive buzz of the electrified saz with woozy keyboard and classic soul melodies. It's a retro-70s aesthetic anchored in Yıldırım's commanding falsetto and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. But, on Turkish standards such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group ventures into dynamic new territory. They create slinking, slow-burning grooves and lifting vocals that give a new, unconventional interpretation to the Turkish psych sound.
3. Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Catholic requiem mass music, Czech harpsichord folksong and orchestral strings converge on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's stunning fourth album. Orchestrating music for the 60-piece 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 interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic reggaeton-inspired beats of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim
