As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the global releases that defied expectations. Presenting a selection of ten remarkable albums that defined the year in music.
A continuous, 40-minute suite of cyclical percussion could sound like it isn't the easiest listening experience. However, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar converts this persistent pulse into a unexpectedly magnetic album. Directing an group of three drummers, Korwar crafts a complex percussive vocabulary across the record's 10 movements. The work draws from the phasing techniques of Steve Reich combined with Indian classical phrasing, each grounded in the recurrence of a continual, driving motif. The longer one listens, this refrain begins to emulate the ceremonial rhythm of ceremonial music, drawing the listener deeper into Korwar's singular percussive universe.
Coming off an long absence, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a melancholy album of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-sung, dub-influenced sound that established her as a fixture in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the nineties. Hamdan's voice is gentle and thoughtful, singing soft melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop beat of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a quivering, longing vocal technique over electronic lines with North African flavors and rattling electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is lean and understated, yet this austerity offers the ideal setting for Hamdan's deeply felt compositions to shine through. The album proves to be well worth the wait.
From Mexico electronic artist Debit specializes in eerie reinterpretations of traditional music. For her latest release, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dub-inflected version of the shuffling Latin American dance genre. Debit slows this sound down to a crawl, filtering its signature synths and syncopated rhythm through sheets of sludge and noise to generate a fresh, sinister beat. At turns atmospheric and discomfiting, Debit morphs the celebratory party music of cumbia into a persistent, ethereal memory.
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, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics over the classic Brazilian genre of baile funk. This captures the energetic sound of neighborhood block parties. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the ferocity, incorporating everything from techno kick drums to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a especially manic and deafeningly intense 40-minute sonic journey. Submit to the assault and Vieira's unapologetic productions become unexpectedly freeing.
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco beats and Punjabi folk melodies is a newly appreciated masterpiece. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an strikingly captivating blend of the sharp sound of 1980s synthesisers and drum machines with her melismatic classical Indian singing style. Electronic percussion mirrors the rolling tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody replicates the traditional sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Elsewhere, bossa nova rhythm is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a fast-paced disco bass groove. It's a club-ready hybrid pioneered more than ten years before the rise of Asian Underground music.
Mongolian vocalist Enji's soft fourth album, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-inflected sound to deliver some of her most wide-ranging music yet. Stepping outside her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces range from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodies 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-inflected 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 close, pulling the listener into the gentle acoustics of her unique voice.
Drawing on the psychedelic tradition of Turkish psychedelia established by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's new album alongside her group fuses the electric jangle of the electrified saz with woozy Mellotron and R&B-inflected lines. It's a retro-70s aesthetic anchored in Yıldırım's strong high register and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape aesthetic. However, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group finds lively new territory. They develop smooth, downtempo grooves and powerful vocals that lend a new, off-kilter twist to the Turkish psych sound.
Catholic requiem mass music, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements all come together on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's stunning fourth album. Orchestrating music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett traverse a vast range including the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic reggaeton-inspired beats of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim
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