Our Ten Finest International Records of This Past Year

Looking back on the musical landscape of global sounds that expanded horizons. We explore ten notable albums that defined the year in music.

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

The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on cyclical percussion could sound like it isn't the most accessible listening experience. However, Indian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar transforms this driving beat into a unexpectedly magnetic album. Leading an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar develops a dense percussive dialect over the record's 10 movements. The work channels the phasing techniques of Steve Reich as well as classical Indian rhythmic patterns, everything tethered in the recurrence of a continual, driving refrain. Over its duration, this refrain begins to emulate the trance-inducing cycles of ritual music, luring the listener further into Korwar's distinctive percussive realm.

9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember

After an long absence, Arab singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a mournful album of songs. She expands on the Arabic-sung, dub-influenced sound that made her a staple in the Arab alternative scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is gentle and ruminative, delivering tender melodies over the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop beat of Vows. During more energetic moments such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a wavering, yearning vocal technique against electronic lines with North African flavors and skittering electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is sparse and understated, yet this austerity offers the perfect environment for Hamdan's deeply felt songwriting to take center stage. The album proves to be that justifies the wait.

8. Debit – Slowed Down

Mexican electronic artist Debit has a knack for eerie reinterpretations of historical sounds. For her latest release, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected interpretation of the shuffling Latin American dance genre. Debit drags this sound to a near-halt, processing its signature synths and syncopated rhythm through veils of sludge and noise to generate a fresh, foreboding rhythm. Periodically atmospheric and discomfiting, Debit converts the exuberant dancefloor sound of cumbia into a lasting, ghostly memory.

Number Seven: DJ K – Radio Libertadora!

Sensory overload is the key term for the records of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a onslaught of sirens, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics over the classic Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This captures the propulsive sound of urban celebrations. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the energy, incorporating everything from driving techno rhythms to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a especially frenetic and punishingly loud forty-minute listening experience. Submit to the noise and Vieira's brash productions become unexpectedly freeing.

Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi

Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco beats and traditional Punjabi tunes is a newly appreciated masterpiece. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an remarkably captivating combination of the synthetic sound of 1980s synthesisers and drum machines with her melismatic Indian classical singing style. Drum machine patterns mirrors the wavelike tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody doubles the classic sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, Latin-inflected grooves takes center stage on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a up-tempo disco bass groove. It's a dancefloor fusion pioneered over a decade before the Asian Underground explosion.

5. The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor

From Mongolia vocalist Enji's soft new release, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-influenced sound to offer some of her most wide-ranging music to date. Departing from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces travel from the soft jazz-pop melodics of downtempo number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a sprightly, funk-inflected cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a full backing band rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still close, inviting the listener into the gentle acoustics of her distinctive voice.

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

Inspired by the psychedelic tradition of Anatolian rock pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's new album alongside her group fuses the metallic twang of the amplified traditional lute with woozy keyboard and R&B-inflected lines. It's a 1970s throwback sound anchored in Yıldırım's powerful falsetto and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. However, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group reaches dynamic new territory. They craft smooth, downtempo grooves and powerful vocals that give a new, quirky interpretation to the Anatolian psychedelic style.

Number Three: Lido Pimienta – The Beauty

Catholic requiem mass music, Czech harpsichord folksong and orchestral strings merge on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable fourth album. Orchestrating music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through a vast range including the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated reggaeton-inspired beats of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim