Our Ten Top Global Records of This Past Year

The past twelve months have offered a rich tapestry of worldwide sounds that pushed boundaries. We explore ten remarkable albums that shaped the year in music.

Number Ten: The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty

A continuous, 40-minute suite of cyclical drumming could sound like it isn't the most approachable listening experience. Yet, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar turns this insistent rhythm into a strangely alluring album. Leading an group of three drummers, Korwar crafts a intricate percussive vocabulary throughout the record's ten parts. The work draws from the phasing techniques of Steve Reich alongside traditional Indian musical phrasing, everything tethered in the reiteration of a ongoing, pulsing figure. As the album progresses, this refrain begins to emulate the hypnotic repetition of ritual music, drawing the listener further into Korwar's singular percussive universe.

Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember

Coming off an eight-year break, Arab singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan returns with a mournful set of songs. She expands on the Arabic-sung, dub-tinged aesthetic that cemented her status in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is soft and introspective, delivering delicate melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rolling trip-hop beat of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a quivering, yearning vibrato against north African synth lines and rattling electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is minimal and subtle, yet this austerity provides the ideal setting for Hamdan's deeply felt lyricism to shine through. The album proves to be truly deserving of the long anticipation.

Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Desaceleradas

Mexican producer Debit excels at haunting reworkings of traditional music. For her new album, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dubby version of the rhythmic Latin American musical style. Debit drags this sound to a near-halt, running its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm via veils of sludge and static to create a new, sinister rhythm. At turns ambient and unsettling, Debit converts the exuberant party music of cumbia into a enduring, ghostly echo.

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

Sensory overload is the operative word for the music of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a tumult of alarms, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics over the longstanding Brazilian genre of baile funk. This captures the propulsive sound of urban celebrations. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the ferocity, adding everything from techno kick drums to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a especially hyperactive and deafeningly intense forty-minute listening experience. Give in to the assault and Vieira's brash productions become oddly freeing.

6. The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco

Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco music and Punjabi folk melodies is a rediscovered treasure. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an unusually compelling blend of the sharp sound of early synthesizers and drum machines with her fluid classical Indian vocal technique. Drum machine patterns mirrors 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. At other times, 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 party blend created more than ten years before the Asian Underground explosion.

Number Five: Enji – Sonor

Mongolian vocalist Enji's soft new release, Sonor, develops her jazz-inflected sound to offer some of her broadest music so far. Moving away from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs range from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodics of downtempo number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-inflected cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a ensemble rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains close, inviting the listener into the warm soundscape of her unique voice.

Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow

Channeling the psychedelic tradition of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's new album with her band Grup Şimşek fuses the metallic twang of the electrified saz with woozy Mellotron and classic soul melodies. It's a 1970s throwback sound grounded in Yıldırım's strong falsetto and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape aesthetic. Yet, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group reaches dynamic new territory. They create slinking, downtempo grooves and powerful vocals that impart a fresh, quirky interpretation to the Turkish psych sound.

Number Three: Lido Pimienta – The Beauty

Catholic requiem mass music, Eastern European folk melodies and symphonic arrangements converge on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable latest work. Arranging music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through everything from the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic dembow rhythms of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim