The 10 Best Global Releases of This Past Year

Looking back on the musical landscape of worldwide sounds that pushed boundaries. Here is a countdown of ten exceptional albums that characterized the year in music.

10. Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty

An album consisting of a single, extended movement of cyclical drumming may not appear the most accessible musical proposition. Yet, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar turns this insistent rhythm into a hypnotically captivating album. Directing an trio of three drummers, Korwar crafts a dense percussive language over the record's ten parts. The album channels minimalist concepts from Steve Reich as well as classical Indian rhythmic patterns, everything tethered in the recurrence of a continual, pulsing figure. The longer one listens, this refrain starts to mirror the hypnotic repetition of ceremonial music, pulling the listener further into Korwar's singular percussive universe.

9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember

Coming off an eight-year break, Lebanese vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan returns with a melancholy collection of songs. She expands on the Arabic-language, dub-tinged sound that cemented her status in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the nineties. Hamdan's vocal delivery is quiet and thoughtful, delivering tender melodies over the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rolling trip-hop groove of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a wavering, yearning vocal technique against electronic lines with North African flavors and clattering electronic percussion. The album's sound is sparse and subtle, yet this simplicity offers the ideal environment for Hamdan's emotive lyricism to take center stage. The album proves to be well worth the wait.

Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Desaceleradas

From Mexico producer Debit excels at uncanny reimaginings of traditional music. For her latest release, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dub-inflected version of the shuffling Latin American dance genre. Debit slows this sound to a near-halt, processing its signature synths and syncopated rhythm through sheets of distortion and noise to create a novel, sinister beat. At turns atmospheric and unsettling, Debit transforms the joyous dancefloor sound of cumbia into a enduring, ghostly echo.

7. The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Liberator Radio!

Sheer intensity is the defining principle for the music of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a tumult of sirens, explosive bass tones and shouted lyrics on top of the longstanding Brazilian genre of baile funk. This emulates the propulsive sound of urban celebrations. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the energy, adding everything from four-on-the-floor techno beats to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a especially manic and punishingly loud forty-minute sonic journey. Submit to the noise and Vieira's bold productions become strangely freeing.

6. Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco

Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco beats 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 combination of the sharp sound of 1980s synthesisers and drum machines with her ornate Indian classical vocal technique. Electronic percussion mimics the rolling tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody replicates the classic sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Elsewhere, bossa nova rhythm comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a fast-paced disco bass groove. It's a club-ready hybrid created more than ten years before the rise of Asian Underground music.

5. The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance

Mongolian singer Enji's soft latest record, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-influenced sound to deliver some of her most diverse music so far. Moving away from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks travel from the gentle jazz-pop melodies of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a sprightly, funk-inflected cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a full backing band rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still personal, drawing the listener into the tender acoustics of her distinctive voice.

Number Four: Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa

Drawing on the 1960s legacy of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's new album alongside her group fuses the electric jangle of the amplified traditional lute with woozy keyboard and classic soul melodies. It's a 1970s throwback sound rooted in Yıldırım's commanding falsetto and shaped by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated sound. However, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group reaches lively new territory. They craft slinking, slow-burning grooves and powerful vocals that lend a novel, off-kilter spin to the Turkish psych sound.

Number Three: Lido Pimienta – La Belleza

Catholic requiem mass music, Czech harpsichord folksong and orchestral strings all come together on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's stunning fourth album. Arranging music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through 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 syncopated reggaeton-inspired beats of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim