This 10 Finest Worldwide Releases of This Past Year

Looking back on the musical landscape of worldwide releases that expanded horizons. Here is a countdown of ten remarkable albums that characterized the year in music.

10. The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty

An album consisting of a single, extended movement of cyclical drumming could sound like it isn't the most approachable musical proposition. However, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar converts this persistent pulse into a unexpectedly magnetic album. Leading an group of three drummers, Korwar creates a intricate percussive language throughout the record's ten sections. His composition channels the phasing techniques of Steve Reich as well as classical Indian rhythmic patterns, all anchored in the recurrence of a ongoing, thrumming refrain. Over its duration, this refrain evokes the ceremonial rhythm of ritual music, drawing the listener further into Korwar's unique percussive universe.

9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember

After an long absence, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a contemplative set of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-language, dub-tinged aesthetic that cemented her status in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the nineties. Hamdan's vocal delivery is soft and thoughtful, singing delicate melodies atop the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rolling trip-hop groove of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a wavering, longing vibrato against electronic lines with North African flavors and rattling electronic percussion. The production is minimal and restrained, yet this minimalism offers the perfect setting for Hamdan's expressive songwriting to shine through. The album proves to be that justifies the long anticipation.

Number Eight: Debit – Slowed Down

From Mexico producer Debit has a knack for uncanny reimaginings of archival audio. For her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby version of the shuffling Latin American dance genre. Debit decelerates this sound down to a crawl, processing its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm through layers of sludge and static to generate a fresh, sinister beat. Periodically ambient and discomfiting, Debit converts the exuberant party music of cumbia into a lasting, ghostly memory.

7. DJ K – Radio Libertadora!

Sensory overload is the key term for the records of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a cacophony of sirens, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics over the enduring Brazilian genre of baile funk. This captures the propulsive sound of urban celebrations. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the ferocity, incorporating 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 especially frenetic and deafeningly intense 40-minute sonic journey. Surrender to the noise and Vieira's unapologetic productions become unexpectedly exhilarating.

Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco

Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco music and Punjabi folk melodies is a newly appreciated treasure. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an remarkably engaging combination of the synthetic sound of 1980s synthesisers and programmed drums with her melismatic classical Indian vocal technique. Drum machine patterns mimics the undulating tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody doubles the traditional sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, Latin-inflected grooves takes center stage on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a driving disco bass groove. It's a dancefloor fusion pioneered more than ten years before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.

Number Five: Enji – Sonor

Mongolian vocalist Enji's gentle new release, Sonor, develops her jazz-influenced sound to deliver some of her most wide-ranging music yet. Stepping outside her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs range from the soft jazz-pop melodics of downtempo number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a energetic, funk-tinged cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Showcasing a live band rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still close, drawing the listener into the tender acoustics of her distinctive voice.

4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – Yarın Yoksa

Channeling the 1960s legacy of Anatolian rock pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's third record alongside her group blends the distinctive buzz of the amplified traditional lute with woozy Mellotron and soulful tunes. It's a nostalgic vibe grounded in Yıldırım's strong falsetto and shaped by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated aesthetic. But, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group reaches vibrant new territory. They develop sinuous, slow-burning grooves and lifting vocals that lend a new, unconventional twist to the Anatolian psychedelic style.

3. Lido Pimienta – La Belleza

Gregorian chants, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings all come together on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary fourth album. Orchestrating music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through everything from the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated reggaeton-inspired beats of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim