Our Ten Most Outstanding International Records of This Past Year
Looking back on the musical landscape of international sounds that defied expectations. We explore ten notable albums that characterized the year in music.
10. Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
A continuous, 40-minute suite of repetitive percussion could sound like it isn't the most accessible musical proposition. Yet, Indian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar transforms this persistent pulse into a hypnotically captivating piece. Guiding an group of three drummers, Korwar creates a dense percussive language across the record's 10 movements. The album references Steve Reich's phasing motifs as well as Indian classical phrasing, everything tethered in the reiteration of a continual, thrumming motif. Over its duration, this refrain evokes the trance-inducing cycles of ceremonial music, pulling the listener deeper into Korwar's distinctive percussive universe.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
Following an eight-year break, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan returns with a melancholy album of songs. She expands on the Arabic-language, dub-influenced sound that made her a staple in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is quiet and thoughtful, delivering soft melodies over the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop beat of Vows. During more energetic moments such as Shadia and Abyss, she adopts a quivering, longing vocal technique over north African synth lines and clattering electronic percussion. The production is lean and understated, yet this austerity provides the ideal setting for Hamdan's emotive lyricism to resonate. This is a record that justifies the long anticipation.
Number Eight: Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico producer Debit excels at haunting reimaginings of traditional music. On her latest release, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected take of the rhythmic Latin American dance genre. Debit drags this sound down to a crawl, filtering its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm via sheets of sludge and noise to generate a fresh, menacing rhythm. Periodically ambient and discomfiting, Debit converts the exuberant party music of cumbia into a enduring, ethereal memory.
Number Seven: The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Maximalism is the defining principle for the output of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a cacophony of alarms, explosive bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the classic Brazilian genre of baile funk. This captures the energetic sound of neighborhood block parties. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the ferocity, throwing in everything from driving techno rhythms to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly hyperactive and deafeningly intense 40-minute sonic journey. Give in to the noise and Vieira's unapologetic productions become oddly freeing.
6. Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a rediscovered masterpiece. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an unusually compelling fusion of the metallic sound of early synthesizers and programmed drums with her melismatic Indian classical vocal technique. Drum machine patterns echoes the wavelike tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody 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 channels a driving funky bass rhythm. It's a club-ready hybrid delivered over a decade before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance
Mongolian vocalist Enji's gentle new release, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-influenced sound to present some of her most wide-ranging music to date. Departing from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks veer from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodics 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 live band rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains intimate, inviting the listener into the tender soundscape of her distinctive voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – If There Is No Tomorrow
Inspired by the psychedelic tradition of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's new album alongside her group fuses the distinctive buzz of the amplified traditional lute with dreamy Mellotron and R&B-inflected lines. It's a 1970s throwback sound anchored in Yıldırım's powerful high register and influenced 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 ventures into lively new territory. They develop sinuous, slow-burning grooves and lifting vocals that give a novel, quirky twist to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Gregorian chants, 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 explore everything from the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated reggaeton-inspired beats of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim
