This Ten Finest Worldwide Albums of This Past Year

Looking back on the musical landscape of international sounds that expanded horizons. We explore 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 cyclical percussion may not appear the easiest listening experience. However, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar transforms this driving beat into a hypnotically captivating work. Directing an trio of three drummers, Korwar develops a complex percussive language across the record's ten parts. The album channels the phasing techniques of Steve Reich alongside Indian classical phrasing, each grounded in the recurrence of a persistent, thrumming motif. The longer one listens, this refrain evokes the hypnotic repetition of ceremonial music, luring the listener further into Korwar's singular percussive world.

9. The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember

Coming off an hiatus of eight years, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a mournful collection of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-language, dub-tinged sound that established her as a fixture in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is quiet and thoughtful, delivering soft melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop beat of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a wavering, longing vibrato over electronic lines with North African flavors and skittering electronic percussion. The production is minimal and restrained, yet this austerity offers the ideal canvas for Hamdan's expressive songwriting to take center stage. It is truly deserving of the long anticipation.

8. The Mexican Producer Debit – Desaceleradas

Mexican producer Debit has a knack for eerie reworkings of archival audio. On her latest release, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dub-inflected take of the shuffling Latin American dance music genre. Debit slows this sound even further, processing its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm through sheets of murk and hiss to generate a novel, foreboding groove. At turns ambient and discomfiting, Debit converts the joyous party music of cumbia into a enduring, spectral echo.

Number Seven: The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Liberator Radio!

Maximalism is the operative word for the music of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a tumult of sirens, explosive bass tones and shouted lyrics over the enduring Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This recreates the driving sound of urban celebrations. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the intensity, incorporating everything from techno kick drums to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a especially hyperactive and punishingly loud forty-minute listening experience. Surrender to the noise and Vieira's brash productions become oddly liberating.

Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi

Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco music and Punjabi folk melodies is a reissued masterpiece. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an strikingly compelling blend of the sharp sound of electronic keyboards and drum machines with her fluid Indian classical singing style. Electronic percussion mirrors the wavelike tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody replicates the classic sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. At other times, bossa nova rhythm comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a fast-paced walking disco bassline. It's a club-ready hybrid delivered more than ten years before the Asian Underground explosion.

Number Five: Enji – Sonor

From Mongolia vocalist Enji's soft new release, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-influenced sound to offer some of her most diverse music to date. Moving away from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs veer from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodics of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-inflected cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a full backing band rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still close, drawing the listener into the gentle acoustics of her singular voice.

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

Drawing on the 60s heritage of Turkish psychedelia established by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's new album with her band Grup Şimşek merges the distinctive buzz of the electrified saz with drifting Mellotron and classic soul melodies. It's a retro-70s aesthetic anchored in Yıldırım's powerful high register and influenced by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated aesthetic. But, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group ventures into lively new territory. They create smooth, downtempo grooves and powerful vocals that give a fresh, unconventional twist to the Turkish psych sound.

3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza

Gregorian chants, Eastern European folk melodies and symphonic arrangements converge on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's stunning fourth album. Orchestrating music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through a vast range including the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic dembow rhythms of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim