Our Ten Greatest International Albums of This Past Year

Looking back on the musical landscape of global releases that defied expectations. We explore ten exceptional albums that characterized the year in music.

10. The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty

A continuous, 40-minute suite of insistent drumming may not appear the most approachable listening experience. Yet, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar turns this persistent pulse into a strangely alluring album. Leading an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar crafts a intricate percussive dialect over the record's 10 movements. The album references Steve Reich's phasing motifs alongside traditional Indian musical phrasing, all anchored in the reiteration of a continual, pulsing motif. The longer one listens, this refrain begins to emulate the trance-inducing cycles of ritual music, pulling the listener further into Korwar's unique percussive world.

9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember

Coming off an long absence, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan returns with a contemplative collection of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-sung, dub-influenced style that cemented her status in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is soft and ruminative, singing soft melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop groove of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a quivering, yearning vocal technique against electronic lines with North African flavors and clattering electronic percussion. The album's sound is lean and understated, yet this minimalism creates the ideal environment for Hamdan's expressive songwriting to resonate. It is that justifies the wait.

8. Debit – Slowed Down

Mexican electronic artist Debit has a knack for haunting reimaginings of archival audio. On her new album, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dub-inflected take of the rhythmic Latin American dance genre. Debit decelerates this sound down to a crawl, running its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm via layers of distortion and noise to generate a new, foreboding groove. At turns atmospheric and unsettling, Debit transforms the celebratory party music of cumbia into a lasting, ghostly memory.

7. The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Liberator Radio!

Sheer intensity is the defining principle for the music of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a tumult of alarms, explosive bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the enduring Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This emulates the driving sound of neighborhood block parties. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the intensity, incorporating everything from driving techno rhythms to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a especially manic and punishingly loud forty-minute sonic journey. Surrender to the noise and Vieira's bold 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 rediscovered gem. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an unusually captivating combination of the sharp sound of early synthesizers and drum machines with her melismatic Indian classical singing style. Electronic percussion mimics the rolling tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody parallels the traditional sound of the harmonium 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 boasts a driving funky bass rhythm. It's a dancefloor fusion created over a decade before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.

5. Enji – Resonance

Mongolian vocalist Enji's soft latest record, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-influenced sound to offer some of her most wide-ranging music to date. Moving away from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs range from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodies of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a energetic, funk-inflected cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a full backing band rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains personal, drawing the listener into the gentle soundscape of her distinctive voice.

Number Four: 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 third record with her band Grup Şimşek fuses the electric jangle of the amplified traditional lute with dreamy Mellotron and classic soul melodies. It's a retro-70s aesthetic rooted in Yıldırım's commanding falsetto and shaped by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated sound. But, on classic Turkish songs such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group ventures into dynamic new territory. They create slinking, slow-burning grooves and soaring vocals that lend a new, quirky spin to the Anatolian psychedelic style.

3. Lido Pimienta – The Beauty

Gregorian chants, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings merge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable latest work. Orchestrating music for the 60-piece 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 counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic reggaeton-inspired beats of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim