This Ten Greatest Worldwide Albums of This Past Year

As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the global sounds that expanded horizons. We explore ten notable albums that shaped the year in music.

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

A continuous, 40-minute suite of repetitive percussion could sound like it isn't the most approachable musical proposition. Yet, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar transforms this driving beat into a unexpectedly magnetic piece. Leading an group of three drummers, Korwar develops a intricate percussive dialect throughout the record's ten parts. His composition references Steve Reich's phasing motifs alongside Indian classical phrasing, all anchored in the repetition of a persistent, thrumming figure. The longer one listens, this refrain starts to mirror the hypnotic repetition of ceremonial music, pulling the listener further into Korwar's unique percussive universe.

Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget

Following an hiatus of eight years, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a contemplative collection of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-sung, dub-influenced style that established her as a fixture in the Arab alternative scene since the nineties. Hamdan's vocal delivery is gentle and thoughtful, delivering soft melodies atop the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop groove of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a quivering, yearning vocal technique against electronic lines with North African flavors and clattering electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is lean and restrained, yet this minimalism offers the ideal canvas for Hamdan's expressive compositions to shine through. The album proves to be well worth the wait.

Number Eight: Debit – Slowed Down

Mexican electronic artist Debit has a knack for eerie reinterpretations of traditional music. For her latest release, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected version of the rhythmic Latin American musical style. Debit drags this sound to a near-halt, running its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm through veils of sludge and hiss to generate a fresh, sinister groove. At turns atmospheric and uneasy, Debit morphs the celebratory dancefloor sound of cumbia into a persistent, ghostly echo.

7. DJ K – Liberator Radio!

Maximalism is the defining principle for the music of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira piles a onslaught of sirens, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics on top of the classic Brazilian genre of baile funk. This emulates the propulsive sound of neighborhood block parties. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the intensity, 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 particularly manic and punishingly loud forty-minute sonic journey. Submit to the cacophony and Vieira's brash productions become strangely liberating.

Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi

Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco beats and traditional Punjabi tunes is a reissued masterpiece. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an strikingly captivating blend of the synthetic sound of early synthesizers and drum machines with her ornate classical Indian singing style. Drum machine patterns mirrors the wavelike tones of the tabla, while synth lines replicates the classic sound of the harmonium 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 features a fast-paced funky bass rhythm. It's a dancefloor fusion created over a decade before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.

5. Enji – Sonor

From Mongolia singer Enji's delicate latest record, Sonor, expands on her jazz-influenced sound to deliver some of her most diverse music to date. Moving away from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces range from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodics 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-tinged cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a ensemble rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains intimate, inviting the listener into the gentle soundscape of her singular voice.

Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow

Drawing on the 1960s legacy of Anatolian rock pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's third record with her band Grup Şimşek merges the metallic twang of the amplified traditional lute with drifting Mellotron and R&B-inflected lines. It's a 1970s throwback sound grounded in Yıldırım's strong high register 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 finds lively new territory. They create slinking, slow-burning grooves and soaring vocals that impart a novel, quirky twist to the Turkish psych sound.

Number Three: Lido Pimienta – The Beauty

Catholic requiem mass music, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings all come together on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable fourth album. Orchestrating music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett traverse everything from the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic dembow rhythms of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim