This 10 Top International Releases of This Past Year
The past twelve months have offered a rich tapestry of international releases that expanded horizons. Here is a countdown of ten exceptional albums that characterized the year in music.
10. Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
A continuous, 40-minute suite of repetitive percussion may not appear the most accessible musical proposition. However, Indian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar turns this driving beat into a unexpectedly magnetic album. Guiding an group of three drummers, Korwar crafts a dense percussive language across the record's ten sections. The album references minimalist concepts from Steve Reich as well as classical Indian rhythmic patterns, all anchored in the reiteration of a ongoing, pulsing refrain. As the album progresses, this refrain begins to emulate the hypnotic repetition of ritual music, pulling the listener further into Korwar's singular percussive universe.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
After an eight-year break, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a contemplative set of songs. She expands on the Arabic-language, dub-influenced sound that established her as a fixture in the Arab alternative scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is quiet and introspective, singing soft melodies atop the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rolling trip-hop beat of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a wavering, longing vibrato over electronic lines with North African flavors and rattling electronic percussion. The album's sound is minimal and subtle, yet this minimalism offers the ideal setting for Hamdan's emotive lyricism to resonate. This is a record well worth the wait.
8. Debit – Desaceleradas
From Mexico producer Debit specializes in eerie reimaginings of historical sounds. On her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dubby version of the shuffling Latin American dance music genre. Debit drags this sound down to a crawl, running its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm through sheets of sludge and static to produce a fresh, sinister beat. Periodically ambient and uneasy, Debit morphs the joyous dancefloor sound of cumbia into a enduring, ghostly memory.
7. DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sheer intensity is the operative word for the output of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a onslaught of sirens, explosive bass tones and shouted lyrics over the classic Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This emulates the energetic sound of favela street parties. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the intensity, throwing in everything from driving techno rhythms to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly hyperactive and deafeningly intense forty-minute listening experience. Give in to the assault and Vieira's brash productions become oddly liberating.
6. The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a reissued gem. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an remarkably compelling fusion of the synthetic sound of electronic keyboards and programmed drums with her melismatic classical Indian vocal technique. Electronic percussion mimics the undulating tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody doubles the classic sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Elsewhere, Latin-inflected grooves takes center stage on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a driving funky bass rhythm. It's a party blend created more than ten years before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
Number Five: Enji – Sonor
From Mongolia singer Enji's gentle latest record, Sonor, develops her jazz-influenced sound to offer some of her most wide-ranging music to date. Stepping outside her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks travel from the gentle jazz-pop melodies of downtempo 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 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a ensemble rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay personal, inviting the listener into the warm acoustics of her unique voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – Yarın Yoksa
Inspired by the 1960s legacy of Anatolian rock pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's third record with her band Grup Şimşek merges the metallic twang of the electrified saz with drifting Mellotron and soulful tunes. It's a retro-70s aesthetic grounded in Yıldırım's commanding high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape aesthetic. However, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group ventures into vibrant new territory. They craft slinking, downtempo grooves and lifting vocals that lend a fresh, off-kilter twist to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
Number Three: The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Catholic requiem mass music, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings merge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary latest work. Orchestrating music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett explore a vast range including the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic dembow rhythms of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim
