This 10 Top Worldwide Records of This Past Year

Looking back on the musical landscape of worldwide sounds that expanded horizons. Here is a countdown of ten exceptional albums that shaped the year in music.

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

A continuous, 40-minute suite of cyclical percussion could sound like it isn't the most approachable musical proposition. However, Indian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar turns this driving beat into a unexpectedly magnetic album. Leading an trio of three drummers, Korwar crafts a complex percussive vocabulary across the record's 10 movements. The work draws from minimalist concepts from Steve Reich as well as classical Indian rhythmic patterns, all anchored in the repetition of a continual, thrumming figure. The longer one listens, this refrain evokes the ceremonial rhythm of ceremonial music, luring the listener deeper into Korwar's unique percussive universe.

9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget

After an eight-year break, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan returns with a melancholy set of songs. She expands on the Arabic-language, dub-tinged aesthetic that made her a staple in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is quiet and thoughtful, singing delicate melodies atop the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop groove of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a quivering, longing vocal technique over north African synth lines and skittering electronic percussion. The production is lean and restrained, yet this austerity creates the perfect setting for Hamdan's deeply felt lyricism to resonate. This is a record truly deserving of the wait.

8. Debit – Slowed Down

From Mexico producer Debit excels at uncanny reinterpretations of historical sounds. On her latest release, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected take of the shuffling Latin American musical style. Debit decelerates this sound to a near-halt, filtering its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm via veils of sludge and static to create a new, menacing rhythm. Periodically ambient and uneasy, Debit morphs the joyous dancefloor sound of cumbia into a enduring, ghostly afterimage.

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

Sheer intensity is the defining principle for the music of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a cacophony of sirens, explosive bass tones and shouted lyrics over the classic Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This captures the driving sound of urban celebrations. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the ferocity, throwing in everything from four-on-the-floor techno beats to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly hyperactive and punishingly loud 40-minute listening experience. Give in to the cacophony and Vieira's unapologetic productions become oddly freeing.

Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco

Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco beats and Punjabi folk melodies is a newly appreciated gem. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an strikingly engaging fusion of the synthetic sound of electronic keyboards and drum machines with her fluid classical Indian vocal technique. Electronic percussion echoes the wavelike tones of the traditional drums, while synth lines replicates the classic sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. At other times, bossa nova rhythm takes center stage on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a up-tempo walking disco bassline. It's a club-ready hybrid created more than ten years before the Asian Underground explosion.

Number Five: Enji – Resonance

Mongolian vocalist Enji's gentle latest record, Sonor, expands on her jazz-influenced sound to present some of her most wide-ranging music to date. Moving away from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs veer from the gentle jazz-pop melodies of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a sprightly, funk-inflected cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a ensemble 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.

Number Four: Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – If There Is No Tomorrow

Drawing on the 60s heritage of Anatolian rock established by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's third record alongside her group fuses the distinctive buzz of the electrified saz with dreamy Mellotron and soulful tunes. It's a 1970s throwback sound grounded in Yıldırım's powerful high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. However, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group ventures into vibrant new territory. They develop sinuous, downtempo grooves and powerful vocals that give a fresh, quirky spin to the Turkish psych sound.

Number Three: The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – The Beauty

Sacred music, Czech harpsichord folksong and orchestral strings converge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's stunning latest work. Orchestrating music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett explore a vast range including the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated reggaeton-inspired beats of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim