Our Ten Top Global Albums of This Past Year

The past twelve months have offered a rich tapestry of worldwide releases that defied expectations. Presenting a selection of ten remarkable albums that shaped the year in music.

Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty

The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on insistent drumming may not appear the easiest musical proposition. Yet, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar transforms this driving beat into a strangely alluring album. Directing an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar develops a intricate percussive language across the record's ten parts. His composition references Steve Reich's phasing motifs as well as traditional Indian musical phrasing, each grounded in the repetition of a ongoing, driving refrain. Over its duration, this refrain evokes the hypnotic repetition of ritual music, drawing the listener further into Korwar's singular percussive universe.

9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget

Following an eight-year break, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a contemplative set of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-language, dub-influenced aesthetic that established her as a fixture in the region's indie music scene since the nineties. Hamdan's vocal delivery is soft and introspective, singing soft melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop groove of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a wavering, yearning vibrato against north African synth lines and clattering electronic percussion. The album's sound is lean and restrained, yet this austerity creates the ideal canvas for Hamdan's deeply felt compositions to resonate. It is truly deserving of the wait.

8. Debit – Desaceleradas

From Mexico producer Debit specializes in uncanny reinterpretations of traditional music. For her latest release, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dub-inflected interpretation of the rhythmic Latin American dance music genre. Debit drags this sound even further, running its signature synths and off-beat rhythm through sheets of distortion and noise to create a new, foreboding rhythm. Periodically atmospheric and unsettling, Debit morphs the joyous dancefloor sound of cumbia into a persistent, spectral afterimage.

7. DJ K – Liberator Radio!

Sensory overload is the key term for the music of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a cacophony of sirens, explosive bass tones and screamed lyrics over the longstanding Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This captures the driving sound of favela street parties. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the intensity, incorporating everything from four-on-the-floor techno beats to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a notably manic and overwhelmingly noisy forty-minute sonic journey. Give in to the assault and Vieira's unapologetic productions become oddly exhilarating.

6. The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi

Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco music and Punjabi folk melodies is a newly appreciated gem. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an remarkably compelling blend of the synthetic sound of early synthesizers and programmed drums with her ornate classical Indian vocal technique. Electronic percussion echoes the undulating tones of the tabla, while synth lines doubles the classic sound of the harmonium 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 channels a driving disco bass groove. It's a dancefloor fusion created more than ten years before the rise of Asian Underground music.

Number Five: Enji – Resonance

Mongolian vocalist Enji's soft fourth album, Sonor, develops her jazz-inflected sound to deliver some of her broadest music so far. Moving away from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces travel from the gentle jazz-pop melodics of downtempo number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-inflected cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a live band rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains intimate, inviting the listener into the warm soundscape of her unique voice.

Number Four: Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – If There Is No Tomorrow

Inspired by the psychedelic tradition of Anatolian rock pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's third record with her band Grup Şimşek fuses the distinctive buzz of the electrified saz with woozy keyboard and soulful tunes. It's a 1970s throwback sound rooted in Yıldırım's strong falsetto and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. Yet, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group ventures into dynamic new territory. They craft slinking, downtempo grooves and lifting vocals that impart a new, unconventional twist to the Anatolian psychedelic style.

Number Three: The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza

Sacred music, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements converge on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary fourth album. 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 theatrical counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic reggaeton-inspired beats of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim