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 notable albums that shaped the year in music.

10. Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty

The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on insistent drumming might not seem the most accessible musical proposition. Yet, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar transforms this driving beat into a unexpectedly magnetic album. Directing an trio of three drummers, Korwar creates a dense percussive dialect throughout the record's ten sections. The album channels the phasing techniques of Steve Reich combined with traditional Indian musical phrasing, everything tethered in the recurrence of a persistent, thrumming motif. As the album progresses, this refrain begins to emulate the trance-inducing cycles of ceremonial music, luring the listener further into Korwar's unique percussive universe.

9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget

After an eight-year break, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a melancholy collection of songs. She expands on the Arabic-sung, dub-influenced style that cemented her status in the Arab alternative scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is quiet and ruminative, singing tender melodies over the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop groove 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 skittering electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is sparse and understated, yet this austerity provides the ideal environment for Hamdan's expressive songwriting to take center stage. This is a record well worth the wait.

8. The Mexican Producer Debit – Desaceleradas

From Mexico electronic artist Debit excels at haunting reimaginings of historical sounds. On her latest release, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dubby interpretation of the shuffling Latin American musical style. Debit drags this sound to a near-halt, filtering its signature synths and off-beat rhythm through layers of murk and hiss to produce a new, foreboding groove. At turns atmospheric and discomfiting, Debit converts the exuberant party music of cumbia into a persistent, ethereal memory.

Number Seven: DJ K – Liberator Radio!

Sheer intensity is the operative word for the output of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira piles a onslaught of alarms, explosive bass tones and shouted lyrics over the classic Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This recreates the energetic sound of favela street parties. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the intensity, throwing in everything from driving techno rhythms to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a especially hyperactive and deafeningly intense forty-minute listening experience. Surrender to the noise and Vieira's brash productions become unexpectedly freeing.

Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi

Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco beats and traditional Punjabi tunes is a newly appreciated treasure. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an remarkably engaging blend of the synthetic sound of early synthesizers and drum machines with her fluid classical Indian vocal technique. Electronic percussion mimics the wavelike tones of the tabla, while synthesiser melody replicates 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 boasts a up-tempo walking disco bassline. It's a club-ready hybrid delivered more than ten years before the Asian Underground explosion.

5. The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor

Mongolian vocalist Enji's soft latest record, Sonor, develops her jazz-influenced sound to deliver some of her most diverse music yet. Stepping outside her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs veer from the soft jazz-pop melodies of downtempo number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-inflected cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a full backing band rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay intimate, inviting the listener into the tender acoustics of her distinctive voice.

4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow

Drawing on the 1960s legacy of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work with her band Grup Şimşek merges the electric jangle of the amplified traditional lute with drifting keyboard and R&B-inflected lines. It's a 1970s throwback sound anchored in Yıldırım's strong high register and influenced by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated aesthetic. But, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group ventures into dynamic new territory. They create slinking, downtempo grooves and lifting vocals that lend a fresh, quirky spin to the Turkish psych sound.

3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza

Gregorian chants, Eastern European folk melodies and symphonic arrangements converge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary latest work. Arranging 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 counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated dembow rhythms of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim