This Ten Finest Global Albums of This Past Year

Looking back on the musical landscape of international releases that pushed boundaries. We explore ten notable albums that characterized the year in music.

10. Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already

An album consisting of a single, extended movement of cyclical drumming could sound like it isn't the most approachable listening experience. However, Indian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar transforms this insistent rhythm into a unexpectedly magnetic album. Leading an trio of three drummers, Korwar crafts a dense percussive language across the record's ten sections. The work channels 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 starts to mirror the trance-inducing cycles of ceremonial music, drawing the listener further into Korwar's singular percussive universe.

9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget

After an hiatus of eight years, Lebanese vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a contemplative collection of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-language, dub-tinged aesthetic that established her as a fixture in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the nineties. Hamdan's voice is gentle and introspective, singing soft melodies over the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop beat of Vows. During more energetic moments such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a trembling, longing vocal technique against north African synth lines and clattering electronic percussion. The production is sparse and subtle, yet this austerity creates the perfect environment for Hamdan's emotive lyricism to shine through. This is a record truly deserving of the long anticipation.

Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down

From Mexico electronic artist Debit excels at uncanny reinterpretations of archival audio. For her new album, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected interpretation 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 murk and hiss to produce a new, foreboding rhythm. At turns atmospheric and uneasy, Debit converts the joyous dancefloor sound of cumbia into a lasting, ghostly memory.

7. DJ K – Radio Libertadora!

Maximalism is the operative word for the music of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira piles a tumult of alarms, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the longstanding Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This captures the propulsive sound of neighborhood block parties. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the intensity, throwing in everything from techno kick drums to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a especially hyperactive and punishingly loud forty-minute listening experience. Submit to the cacophony and Vieira's bold productions become unexpectedly freeing.

Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi

Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release of disco music and Punjabi folk melodies is a rediscovered gem. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an unusually captivating blend of the metallic sound of electronic keyboards and programmed drums with her fluid classical Indian singing style. Drum machine patterns mimics the wavelike tones of the traditional drums, while synth lines doubles the classic sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Elsewhere, Latin-inflected grooves comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya boasts a driving walking disco bassline. It's a party blend created over a decade before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.

Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance

From Mongolia vocalist Enji's gentle latest record, Sonor, expands on her jazz-influenced sound to offer some of her broadest music yet. Departing from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces veer from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodics of slow-burning 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 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a ensemble rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still close, pulling the listener into the gentle soundscape of her distinctive voice.

Number Four: Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa

Drawing on the 60s heritage of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's new album alongside her group blends the distinctive buzz of the electrified saz with woozy keyboard and classic soul melodies. It's a 1970s throwback sound grounded in Yıldırım's commanding high register and influenced by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated sound. Yet, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group reaches lively new territory. They develop smooth, downtempo grooves and lifting vocals that impart a novel, quirky interpretation to the Turkish psych sound.

3. Lido Pimienta – La Belleza

Gregorian chants, Czech harpsichord folksong and orchestral strings merge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's stunning fourth album. Arranging music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett traverse a vast range including the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic dembow rhythms of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim