As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the international releases that expanded horizons. Presenting a selection of ten exceptional albums that defined the year in music.
The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on repetitive drumming may not appear the easiest listening experience. However, Indian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar converts this insistent rhythm into a hypnotically captivating piece. Guiding an group of three drummers, Korwar creates a complex percussive dialect across the record's ten parts. The work draws from minimalist concepts from Steve Reich combined with Indian classical phrasing, everything tethered in the repetition of a persistent, thrumming figure. Over its duration, this refrain evokes the ceremonial rhythm of devotional music, drawing the listener further into Korwar's unique percussive realm.
Coming off an hiatus of eight years, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a mournful set of songs. She expands on the Arabic-language, dub-tinged sound that made her a staple in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is gentle and thoughtful, singing soft melodies atop 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 trembling, longing vocal technique over north African synth lines and rattling electronic percussion. The production is lean and subtle, yet this simplicity provides the ideal environment for Hamdan's expressive compositions to shine through. This is a record truly deserving of the wait.
Mexican electronic artist Debit excels at haunting reimaginings of archival audio. On her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dubby version of the shuffling Latin American dance music genre. Debit decelerates this sound down to a crawl, filtering its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm via sheets of murk and static to produce a fresh, sinister rhythm. At turns ambient and discomfiting, Debit morphs the joyous party music of cumbia into a persistent, ethereal memory.
Sheer intensity is the defining principle for the output of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira piles a tumult of alarms, explosive bass tones and screamed lyrics over the enduring Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This recreates the driving sound of favela street parties. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the intensity, throwing in everything from four-on-the-floor techno beats to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly manic and deafeningly intense forty-minute sonic journey. Submit to the cacophony and Vieira's bold productions become unexpectedly exhilarating.
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco music and Punjabi folk melodies is a newly appreciated gem. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an remarkably captivating blend of the metallic sound of 1980s synthesisers and programmed drums with her ornate Indian classical singing style. Drum machine patterns echoes the wavelike tones of the tabla, while synth lines doubles the classic sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, Latin-inflected grooves comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a up-tempo funky bass rhythm. It's a dancefloor fusion pioneered more than ten years before the rise of Asian Underground music.
Mongolian singer Enji's gentle fourth album, Sonor, develops her jazz-inflected sound to offer some of her most diverse music yet. Departing from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs travel from the soft jazz-pop melodies 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 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Showcasing a live band rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains intimate, pulling the listener into the warm acoustics of her distinctive voice.
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 fuses the electric jangle of the amplified traditional lute with dreamy keyboard 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 aesthetic. However, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group reaches lively new territory. They craft smooth, downtempo grooves and lifting vocals that give a new, off-kilter interpretation to the Turkish psych sound.
Gregorian chants, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements merge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary fourth album. Arranging music for the 60-piece MedellÃn Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through everything from the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic dembow rhythms of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim
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