The Ten Most Outstanding Worldwide Albums of This Past Year

Looking back on the musical landscape of worldwide releases that pushed boundaries. Here is a countdown of ten exceptional albums that shaped the year in music.

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

The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on insistent percussion might not seem the most accessible musical proposition. However, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar converts this driving beat into a unexpectedly magnetic piece. Leading an group of three drummers, Korwar creates a complex percussive vocabulary over the record's ten sections. The work references the phasing techniques of Steve Reich alongside Indian classical phrasing, each grounded in the reiteration of a continual, driving motif. The longer one listens, this refrain begins to emulate the trance-inducing cycles of devotional music, pulling the listener deeper into Korwar's distinctive percussive realm.

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

Following an long absence, Lebanese vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan returns with a mournful album of songs. She expands on the Arabic-sung, dub-tinged aesthetic that made her a staple in the region's indie music scene since the nineties. Hamdan's vocal delivery is soft and introspective, delivering tender melodies atop the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rolling trip-hop groove of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a quivering, longing vocal technique against Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and clattering electronic percussion. The production is sparse and subtle, yet this minimalism offers the perfect canvas for Hamdan's emotive lyricism to take center stage. This is a record truly deserving of the long anticipation.

8. Debit – Slowed Down

From Mexico electronic artist Debit has a knack for uncanny reinterpretations of traditional music. For her latest release, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby take of the rhythmic Latin American dance music genre. Debit slows this sound even further, running its signature synths and off-beat rhythm through sheets of sludge and hiss to create a novel, sinister groove. Periodically atmospheric and discomfiting, Debit morphs the celebratory dancefloor sound of cumbia into a persistent, ghostly echo.

Number Seven: DJ K – Radio Libertadora!

Maximalism is the operative word for the output of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a onslaught of alarms, explosive bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the classic Brazilian genre of baile funk. This recreates the propulsive sound of favela street parties. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the intensity, adding everything from techno kick drums to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a notably manic and overwhelmingly noisy forty-minute listening experience. Give in to the noise and Vieira's brash productions become oddly liberating.

Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi

Religious vocalist 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 present an strikingly compelling combination of the sharp sound of 1980s synthesisers and programmed drums with her melismatic classical Indian vocal technique. Drum machine patterns echoes the rolling tones of the traditional drums, while synth lines doubles the traditional sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Elsewhere, bossa nova rhythm is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya boasts a up-tempo funky bass rhythm. It's a club-ready hybrid pioneered more than ten years before the rise of Asian Underground music.

5. Enji – Sonor

Mongolian vocalist Enji's soft new release, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-influenced sound to offer some of her most diverse music so far. Stepping outside her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks range from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodies of slow-burning 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 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a ensemble rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still intimate, inviting the listener into the gentle soundscape of her singular voice.

Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow

Channeling the 1960s legacy of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's new album alongside her group fuses the distinctive buzz of the amplified traditional lute with woozy keyboard and classic soul melodies. It's a 1970s throwback sound grounded in Yıldırım's commanding falsetto and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. Yet, on Turkish standards such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group finds lively new territory. They create sinuous, slow-burning grooves and lifting vocals that impart a fresh, quirky twist to the Anatolian psychedelic style.

3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza

Catholic requiem mass music, Eastern European folk melodies and symphonic arrangements merge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable fourth album. Orchestrating music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett traverse everything from the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated dembow rhythms of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim