This Ten Top Global Albums of This Past Year

The past twelve months have offered a rich tapestry of worldwide releases that pushed boundaries. We explore ten exceptional albums that characterized the year in music.

Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty

A continuous, 40-minute suite of insistent percussion might not seem the most approachable listening experience. But, Indian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar transforms this persistent pulse into a unexpectedly magnetic album. Guiding an group of three drummers, Korwar crafts a dense percussive vocabulary across the record's 10 movements. His composition references the phasing techniques of Steve Reich alongside traditional Indian musical phrasing, all anchored in the repetition of a ongoing, pulsing figure. Over its duration, this refrain begins to emulate the trance-inducing cycles of devotional music, luring the listener deeper into Korwar's singular percussive world.

9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget

After an long absence, Arab singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a mournful album of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-sung, dub-influenced sound that established her as a fixture in the region's indie music scene since the nineties. Hamdan's voice is gentle and ruminative, delivering tender melodies over the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rolling trip-hop beat of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she adopts a quivering, yearning vocal technique against electronic lines with North African flavors and skittering electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is sparse and subtle, yet this simplicity creates the perfect canvas for Hamdan's deeply felt compositions to resonate. The album proves to be that justifies the wait.

Number Eight: Debit – Desaceleradas

From Mexico electronic artist Debit has a knack for haunting reinterpretations of historical sounds. On her new album, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dubby take of the shuffling Latin American dance music genre. Debit drags this sound down to a crawl, filtering its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm through layers of distortion and static to create a new, sinister groove. Periodically atmospheric and discomfiting, Debit morphs the exuberant party music of cumbia into a lasting, ethereal echo.

7. DJ K – Liberator Radio!

Sheer intensity is the key term for the records of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a onslaught of sirens, explosive bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the longstanding Brazilian genre of baile funk. This emulates the driving sound of urban celebrations. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the intensity, adding everything from four-on-the-floor techno beats to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly hyperactive and deafeningly intense 40-minute listening experience. Give in to the cacophony and Vieira's brash productions become strangely exhilarating.

Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco

Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a newly appreciated treasure. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an unusually compelling blend of the synthetic sound of 1980s synthesisers and programmed drums with her ornate classical Indian vocal technique. Electronic percussion mirrors the rolling tones of the tabla, while synthesiser melody replicates the traditional 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 boasts a up-tempo disco bass groove. It's a party blend created more than ten years before the rise of Asian Underground music.

Number Five: Enji – Resonance

From Mongolia singer Enji's gentle latest record, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-influenced sound to offer some of her most diverse music yet. Moving away from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs range from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodics 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-tinged cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Showcasing a ensemble rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still personal, drawing the listener into the warm soundscape of her singular voice.

Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – Yarın Yoksa

Inspired by the 60s heritage of Anatolian rock pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's third record with her band Grup Şimşek fuses the distinctive buzz of the amplified traditional lute with dreamy Mellotron and soulful tunes. It's a nostalgic vibe rooted in Yıldırım's commanding falsetto and shaped by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated sound. Yet, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group finds dynamic new territory. They create smooth, downtempo grooves and lifting vocals that impart a fresh, unconventional spin to the Anatolian psychedelic style.

3. Lido Pimienta – The Beauty

Catholic requiem mass music, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings all come together on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's stunning latest work. 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 reggaeton-inspired beats of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim