This Ten Most Outstanding International Records of This Past Year

Looking back on the musical landscape of global releases that defied expectations. We explore ten notable albums that shaped the year in music.

10. Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already

The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on repetitive percussion could sound like it isn't the most accessible listening experience. However, Indian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar converts this driving beat into a unexpectedly magnetic piece. Directing an trio of three drummers, Korwar crafts a intricate percussive dialect throughout the record's ten parts. His composition draws from minimalist concepts from Steve Reich as well as Indian classical phrasing, everything tethered in the reiteration of a continual, driving motif. As the album progresses, this refrain evokes the ceremonial rhythm of ritual music, pulling the listener further into Korwar's singular percussive world.

9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget

Following an eight-year break, Lebanese vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan returns with a contemplative album of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-language, dub-influenced style that cemented her status in the region's indie music scene since the nineties. Hamdan's voice is gentle and ruminative, singing tender melodies atop the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rolling trip-hop groove of Vows. During more energetic moments such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a quivering, longing vibrato against Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and rattling electronic percussion. The album's sound is minimal and restrained, yet this simplicity creates the ideal environment for Hamdan's expressive songwriting to shine through. The album proves to be well worth the wait.

Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down

From Mexico producer Debit specializes in uncanny reworkings of historical sounds. On her new album, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby version of the shuffling Latin American dance genre. Debit decelerates this sound even further, running its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm through layers of distortion and noise to produce a new, sinister beat. Periodically ambient and unsettling, Debit transforms the exuberant party music of cumbia into a persistent, ethereal afterimage.

Number Seven: DJ K – Liberator Radio!

Sheer intensity is the key term for the output of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a onslaught of alarms, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the enduring Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This captures the driving sound of urban celebrations. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the ferocity, throwing in everything from driving techno rhythms to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a especially hyperactive and deafeningly intense 40-minute listening experience. Give in to the assault and Vieira's unapologetic productions become oddly liberating.

Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco

Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco beats and traditional Punjabi tunes is a newly appreciated masterpiece. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an strikingly captivating combination of the synthetic sound of 1980s synthesisers and programmed drums with her ornate classical Indian vocal technique. Electronic percussion mimics the undulating tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody parallels the classic sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. At other times, Latin-inflected grooves comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya boasts a up-tempo walking disco bassline. It's a dancefloor fusion delivered over a decade before the Asian Underground explosion.

Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor

Mongolian vocalist Enji's delicate new release, Sonor, expands on her jazz-inflected sound to offer some of her most wide-ranging music to date. Departing from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs travel from the gentle jazz-pop melodies of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a sprightly, funk-inflected cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a full backing band rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still close, drawing the listener into the tender acoustics of her distinctive voice.

Number Four: Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa

Channeling the psychedelic tradition of Turkish psychedelia established by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work alongside her group merges the metallic twang of the electrified saz with drifting keyboard and soulful tunes. It's a retro-70s aesthetic grounded in Yıldırım's powerful falsetto and shaped by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated aesthetic. However, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group finds vibrant new territory. They develop smooth, slow-burning grooves and soaring vocals that impart a novel, unconventional interpretation to the Turkish psych sound.

Number Three: The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – The Beauty

Gregorian chants, Czech harpsichord folksong and orchestral strings all come together on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's stunning fourth album. Orchestrating music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through a vast range including the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic reggaeton-inspired beats of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim