The 10 Finest International Albums of This Past Year
The past twelve months have offered a rich tapestry of worldwide releases that pushed boundaries. Here is a countdown of ten remarkable albums that characterized the year in music.
10. The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on insistent drumming could sound like it isn't the most accessible listening experience. However, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar turns this insistent rhythm into a strangely alluring work. Guiding an group of three drummers, Korwar creates a dense percussive language throughout the record's 10 movements. The work draws from Steve Reich's phasing motifs combined with traditional Indian musical phrasing, each grounded in the reiteration of a continual, pulsing figure. The longer one listens, this refrain evokes the hypnotic repetition of devotional music, drawing the listener deeper into Korwar's distinctive percussive universe.
9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
After an hiatus of eight years, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a melancholy album of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-language, dub-tinged aesthetic that made her a staple in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the nineties. Hamdan's voice is quiet and ruminative, delivering soft melodies over the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop beat of Vows. During more energetic moments such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a quivering, longing vibrato over Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and skittering electronic percussion. The album's sound is lean and subtle, yet this austerity provides the perfect canvas for Hamdan's emotive lyricism to shine through. It is that justifies the long anticipation.
Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down
Mexican electronic artist Debit has a knack for uncanny reinterpretations of traditional music. For her new album, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dubby interpretation of the shuffling Latin American dance genre. Debit decelerates this sound down to a crawl, filtering its signature synths and off-beat rhythm via layers of sludge and noise to generate a new, menacing beat. At turns ambient and unsettling, Debit transforms the celebratory dancefloor sound of cumbia into a lasting, spectral echo.
7. DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sensory overload is the key term for the records of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a cacophony of alarms, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics over the enduring Brazilian genre of baile funk. This captures the driving sound of favela street parties. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the intensity, incorporating everything from four-on-the-floor techno beats to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a especially hyperactive and deafeningly intense forty-minute sonic journey. Surrender 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 1982 album of disco beats and traditional Punjabi tunes is a reissued treasure. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an remarkably engaging blend of the synthetic sound of electronic keyboards and drum machines with her fluid classical Indian vocal technique. Drum machine patterns mimics the undulating tones of the traditional drums, while synth lines replicates the classic sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Elsewhere, Latin-inflected grooves is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a up-tempo walking disco bassline. It's a dancefloor fusion created more than ten years before the rise of Asian Underground music.
5. Enji – Sonor
From Mongolia vocalist Enji's gentle new release, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-inflected sound to offer some of her most diverse music yet. Moving away from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces veer from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodics of downtempo number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a sprightly, funk-inflected cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a full backing band rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still intimate, inviting the listener into the gentle soundscape of her singular voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa
Inspired by the psychedelic tradition of Anatolian rock established by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's third record alongside her group fuses the electric jangle of the electrified saz with woozy keyboard and classic soul melodies. It's a 1970s throwback sound rooted in Yıldırım's powerful high register and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape aesthetic. But, on classic Turkish songs such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group ventures into vibrant new territory. They develop smooth, slow-burning grooves and soaring vocals that lend a novel, unconventional interpretation to the Turkish psych sound.
3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Gregorian chants, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings merge on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable fourth album. Arranging music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett traverse everything from the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic dembow rhythms of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim
