The 10 Most Outstanding International Releases of This Past Year
Looking back on the musical landscape of global releases that pushed boundaries. Presenting a selection of ten remarkable albums that characterized the year in music.
Number Ten: The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
A continuous, 40-minute suite of insistent drumming may not appear the most approachable musical proposition. However, Indian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar turns this driving beat into a strangely alluring piece. Directing an trio of three drummers, Korwar crafts a dense percussive vocabulary across the record's 10 movements. The work draws from minimalist concepts from Steve Reich as well as Indian classical phrasing, everything tethered in the recurrence of a ongoing, pulsing motif. The longer one listens, this refrain evokes the hypnotic repetition of ceremonial music, luring the listener further into Korwar's unique percussive realm.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
Coming off an long absence, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a melancholy collection of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-language, dub-tinged aesthetic that cemented her status in the region's indie music scene since the nineties. Hamdan's voice is quiet and thoughtful, delivering tender melodies over the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rolling trip-hop beat of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a trembling, yearning vibrato against north African synth lines and rattling electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is sparse and subtle, yet this simplicity offers the ideal setting for Hamdan's deeply felt lyricism to shine through. It is that justifies the long anticipation.
Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Desaceleradas
From Mexico producer Debit has a knack for uncanny reinterpretations of archival audio. For her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dubby version of the shuffling Latin American dance genre. Debit drags this sound down to a crawl, filtering its signature synths and off-beat rhythm through veils of distortion and hiss to create a novel, foreboding groove. At turns ambient and unsettling, Debit transforms the joyous party music of cumbia into a enduring, ghostly memory.
7. DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sheer intensity is the defining principle for the output of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a cacophony of sirens, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics over the classic Brazilian genre of baile funk. This emulates the driving sound of urban celebrations. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the ferocity, adding everything from four-on-the-floor techno beats to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a especially frenetic and deafeningly intense 40-minute sonic journey. Submit to the cacophony and Vieira's unapologetic productions become oddly exhilarating.
6. Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco music and Punjabi folk melodies is a newly appreciated gem. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an unusually compelling fusion of the metallic sound of electronic keyboards and programmed drums with her ornate Indian classical singing style. Electronic percussion mimics the undulating tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody replicates the classic sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, Latin-inflected grooves takes center stage on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya boasts a driving funky bass rhythm. It's a party blend created more than ten years before the Asian Underground explosion.
5. The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance
Mongolian singer Enji's soft latest record, Sonor, develops her jazz-influenced sound to deliver some of her most diverse music to date. Stepping outside her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs travel from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodics of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-tinged 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, drawing the listener into the warm acoustics of her distinctive voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – Yarın Yoksa
Inspired by the psychedelic tradition of Anatolian rock pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work with her band Grup Şimşek merges the metallic twang of the electrified saz with dreamy Mellotron and R&B-inflected lines. It's a nostalgic vibe grounded in Yıldırım's strong high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated sound. But, on Turkish standards such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group finds lively new territory. They create sinuous, downtempo grooves and soaring vocals that impart a new, unconventional spin to the Turkish psych sound.
3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Gregorian chants, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements all come together on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable fourth album. Orchestrating music for the 60-piece 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 interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated reggaeton-inspired beats of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim
