This 10 Greatest International Records of This Past Year

Looking back on the musical landscape of worldwide music that expanded horizons. We explore ten remarkable albums that shaped the year in music.

10. Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty

An album consisting of a single, extended movement of cyclical drumming could sound like it isn't the easiest musical proposition. Yet, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar transforms this insistent rhythm into a strangely alluring album. Directing an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar develops a dense percussive dialect over the record's ten sections. The album references Steve Reich's phasing motifs combined with classical Indian rhythmic patterns, everything tethered in the reiteration of a ongoing, thrumming refrain. Over its duration, this refrain starts to mirror the ceremonial rhythm of ceremonial music, luring the listener deeper into Korwar's singular percussive world.

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

Coming off an eight-year break, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan returns with a contemplative collection of songs. She expands on the Arabic-language, dub-tinged style that established her as a fixture in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is quiet and introspective, delivering tender melodies atop the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rolling trip-hop groove of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a wavering, longing vibrato against Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and clattering electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is lean and subtle, yet this austerity offers the perfect environment for Hamdan's deeply felt songwriting to shine through. The album proves to be that justifies the wait.

Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Desaceleradas

From Mexico producer Debit specializes in uncanny reinterpretations of historical sounds. On her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby version of the rhythmic Latin American dance genre. Debit drags this sound even further, filtering its signature synths and off-beat rhythm through sheets of sludge and hiss to produce a fresh, foreboding groove. At turns ambient and discomfiting, Debit converts the celebratory dancefloor sound of cumbia into a enduring, spectral afterimage.

7. DJ K – Liberator Radio!

Sheer intensity is the operative word for the records of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira piles a cacophony of sirens, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics over the enduring Brazilian genre of baile funk. This captures the energetic sound of urban celebrations. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the ferocity, throwing in everything from four-on-the-floor techno beats to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly hyperactive and deafeningly intense forty-minute listening experience. Submit to the cacophony and Vieira's bold productions become strangely exhilarating.

Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi

Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release of disco beats and traditional Punjabi tunes is a reissued treasure. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an unusually captivating blend of the synthetic sound of 1980s synthesisers and programmed drums with her melismatic Indian classical singing style. Drum machine patterns echoes the rolling tones of the tabla, while synth lines replicates the classic sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Elsewhere, bossa nova rhythm is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a fast-paced funky bass rhythm. It's a party blend created over a decade before the rise of Asian Underground music.

Number Five: Enji – Sonor

Mongolian singer Enji's soft latest record, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-inflected sound to offer some of her most diverse music so far. Stepping outside her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks veer from the soft jazz-pop melodics of downtempo number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-tinged cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a live band rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay close, inviting the listener into the gentle acoustics of her distinctive voice.

4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – Yarın Yoksa

Channeling the psychedelic tradition of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work alongside her group fuses the distinctive buzz of the electrified saz with drifting keyboard and classic soul melodies. It's a nostalgic vibe rooted in Yıldırım's powerful falsetto and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape aesthetic. However, on classic Turkish songs such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group ventures into vibrant new territory. They craft slinking, downtempo grooves and soaring vocals that lend a novel, quirky interpretation to the Anatolian psychedelic style.

3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – The Beauty

Catholic requiem mass music, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements all come together on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary latest work. Arranging music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett explore everything from the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic reggaeton-inspired beats of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim