The 10 Greatest Worldwide Albums of This Past Year

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

10. Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty

A continuous, 40-minute suite of cyclical drumming could sound like it isn't the easiest musical proposition. Yet, Indian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar turns this insistent rhythm into a strangely alluring work. Guiding an group of three drummers, Korwar develops a complex percussive vocabulary across the record's ten sections. The album channels minimalist concepts from Steve Reich combined with traditional Indian musical phrasing, everything tethered in the reiteration of a persistent, thrumming figure. Over its duration, this refrain evokes the hypnotic repetition of ceremonial music, luring the listener further into Korwar's unique percussive realm.

Number Nine: The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget

Following an long absence, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a mournful set of songs. She expands on the Arabic-sung, dub-tinged sound that cemented her status in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is gentle and thoughtful, singing soft melodies over the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop beat of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a trembling, yearning vibrato against electronic lines with North African flavors and rattling electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is lean and restrained, yet this austerity provides the ideal environment for Hamdan's expressive compositions to resonate. It is that justifies the long anticipation.

Number Eight: Debit – Slowed Down

From Mexico producer Debit specializes in uncanny reinterpretations of historical sounds. For her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby take of the rhythmic Latin American musical style. Debit decelerates this sound even further, processing its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm via veils of sludge and static to produce a novel, menacing groove. Periodically atmospheric and uneasy, Debit transforms the exuberant party music of cumbia into a persistent, spectral afterimage.

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

Maximalism is the operative word for the records of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a onslaught of sirens, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the enduring Brazilian genre of baile funk. This captures the energetic sound of favela street parties. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the energy, throwing in everything from techno kick drums to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly hyperactive and punishingly loud forty-minute sonic journey. Submit to the cacophony and Vieira's unapologetic productions become oddly freeing.

6. The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco

Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco beats and traditional Punjabi tunes is a newly appreciated gem. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an remarkably captivating combination of the sharp sound of early synthesizers and programmed drums with her ornate classical Indian vocal technique. Electronic percussion mimics the wavelike tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody parallels the traditional sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. At other times, bossa nova rhythm is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a fast-paced walking disco bassline. It's a dancefloor fusion pioneered more than ten years before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.

Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance

Mongolian singer Enji's gentle new release, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-inflected sound to offer some of her broadest music yet. Stepping outside her background 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 twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a energetic, funk-inflected cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a full backing band rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still close, inviting the listener into the tender acoustics of her unique voice.

Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – Yarın Yoksa

Inspired by the 60s heritage of Turkish psychedelia established by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work alongside her group merges the electric jangle of the electrified saz with drifting Mellotron and R&B-inflected lines. It's a retro-70s aesthetic grounded in Yıldırım's powerful falsetto and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape aesthetic. However, on Turkish standards such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group reaches dynamic new territory. They develop sinuous, slow-burning grooves and soaring vocals that impart a novel, off-kilter spin to the Turkish psych sound.

3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza

Gregorian chants, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements converge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's stunning latest work. Orchestrating music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett traverse everything from the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated dembow rhythms of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim