This Ten Greatest Worldwide Records of This Past Year

As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the worldwide music that expanded horizons. Presenting a selection of ten exceptional albums that shaped the year in music.

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

The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on repetitive drumming could sound like it isn't the most accessible musical proposition. Yet, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar converts this insistent rhythm into a hypnotically captivating album. Guiding an trio of three drummers, Korwar creates a intricate percussive dialect across the record's ten parts. His composition draws from minimalist concepts from Steve Reich alongside classical Indian rhythmic patterns, each grounded in the reiteration of a persistent, pulsing refrain. Over its duration, this refrain evokes the hypnotic repetition of devotional music, drawing the listener deeper into Korwar's unique percussive realm.

9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget

Following an long absence, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a melancholy album of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-language, dub-influenced aesthetic that cemented her status in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is quiet and thoughtful, singing soft melodies over the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rolling trip-hop groove of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a quivering, yearning vibrato against Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and clattering electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is minimal and understated, yet this simplicity provides the ideal setting for Hamdan's expressive lyricism to shine through. It is truly deserving of the long anticipation.

8. Debit – Desaceleradas

Mexican producer Debit excels at eerie reworkings of historical sounds. On her new album, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dub-inflected take of the rhythmic Latin American dance genre. Debit drags this sound down to a crawl, running its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm via sheets of sludge and hiss to create a fresh, foreboding beat. At turns atmospheric and discomfiting, Debit converts the exuberant dancefloor sound of cumbia into a enduring, spectral afterimage.

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

Maximalism is the operative word for the records of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a tumult of alarms, explosive bass tones and shouted lyrics on top of the enduring Brazilian genre of baile funk. This captures the propulsive sound of neighborhood block parties. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the ferocity, incorporating 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 frenetic and punishingly loud 40-minute listening experience. Give in to the assault and Vieira's bold productions become oddly freeing.

6. The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi

Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco beats and Punjabi folk melodies is a reissued masterpiece. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an strikingly engaging fusion of the synthetic sound of 1980s synthesisers and drum machines with her melismatic classical Indian singing style. Drum machine patterns mimics the rolling tones of the tabla, while synth lines replicates the classic sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, Latin-inflected grooves comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a fast-paced disco bass groove. It's a club-ready hybrid created more than ten years before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.

Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor

Mongolian singer Enji's delicate fourth album, Sonor, develops her jazz-inflected sound to present some of her broadest music to date. Moving away from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks travel from the soft jazz-pop melodics of downtempo number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-tinged cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a full backing band rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay personal, inviting the listener into the gentle soundscape of her distinctive voice.

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

Inspired by the 60s heritage of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's third record alongside her group merges the metallic twang of the electrified saz with dreamy Mellotron and R&B-inflected lines. It's a retro-70s aesthetic anchored in Yıldırım's commanding high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated aesthetic. But, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group ventures into lively new territory. They craft sinuous, downtempo grooves and powerful vocals that impart a novel, unconventional twist to the Turkish psych sound.

3. Lido Pimienta – The Beauty

Catholic requiem mass music, Czech harpsichord folksong and orchestral strings merge on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's stunning fourth album. Orchestrating music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett traverse a vast range including the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated dembow rhythms of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim