Our Ten Greatest International Releases of This Past Year

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

10. The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already

A continuous, 40-minute suite of repetitive drumming could sound like it isn't the most accessible musical proposition. Yet, Indian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar turns this driving beat into a hypnotically captivating work. Directing an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar develops a dense percussive dialect across the record's 10 movements. The work channels the phasing techniques of Steve Reich alongside classical Indian rhythmic patterns, each grounded in the reiteration of a continual, thrumming refrain. As the album progresses, this refrain starts to mirror the trance-inducing cycles of devotional music, drawing the listener further into Korwar's singular percussive world.

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

Following an hiatus of eight years, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a contemplative set of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-language, dub-tinged style that established her as a fixture in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the nineties. Hamdan's vocal delivery is gentle and thoughtful, singing tender melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop beat of Vows. During more energetic moments such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a wavering, yearning vocal technique over Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and skittering electronic percussion. The production is minimal and understated, yet this minimalism creates the ideal canvas for Hamdan's expressive compositions to shine through. This is a record well worth the wait.

Number Eight: Debit – Slowed Down

From Mexico electronic artist Debit excels at uncanny reworkings of archival audio. For her new album, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected version of the rhythmic Latin American musical style. Debit slows this sound even further, running its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm through sheets of sludge and hiss to generate a new, menacing groove. Sometimes atmospheric and uneasy, Debit transforms the joyous party music of cumbia into a lasting, ghostly memory.

7. DJ K – Liberator Radio!

Sensory overload is the key term for the music of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a cacophony of sirens, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics over the classic Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This captures the energetic sound of favela street parties. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the energy, adding 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 especially frenetic and deafeningly intense forty-minute listening experience. Submit to the noise and Vieira's brash productions become unexpectedly liberating.

Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi

Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release of disco music and Punjabi folk melodies is a newly appreciated masterpiece. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an remarkably compelling blend of the metallic sound of electronic keyboards and programmed drums with her melismatic classical Indian vocal technique. Drum machine patterns mimics the wavelike tones of the tabla, while synth lines replicates the classic sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, bossa nova rhythm comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a up-tempo funky bass rhythm. It's a dancefloor fusion delivered more than ten years before the Asian Underground explosion.

Number Five: Enji – Resonance

Mongolian vocalist Enji's gentle new release, Sonor, develops her jazz-inflected sound to present 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 soft Norah Jones-esque melodies of downtempo number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-inflected cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a ensemble rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains personal, drawing the listener into the gentle soundscape of her singular voice.

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

Drawing on the psychedelic tradition of Turkish psychedelia established 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 dreamy keyboard and classic soul melodies. It's a nostalgic vibe rooted in Yıldırım's commanding falsetto and shaped by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated sound. Yet, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group ventures into dynamic new territory. They develop slinking, downtempo grooves and lifting vocals that give a new, off-kilter spin to the Anatolian psychedelic style.

Number Three: Lido Pimienta – La Belleza

Sacred music, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings converge on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable fourth album. Arranging music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett explore a vast range including the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated reggaeton-inspired beats of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim