This 10 Finest Worldwide Records of This Past Year

As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the worldwide music that pushed boundaries. We explore ten notable albums that shaped the year in music.

10. The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already

An album consisting of a single, extended movement of cyclical drumming might not seem the easiest listening experience. However, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar turns this driving beat into a unexpectedly magnetic work. Directing an trio of three drummers, Korwar develops a intricate percussive language across the record's 10 movements. His composition channels Steve Reich's phasing motifs alongside classical Indian rhythmic patterns, everything tethered in the repetition of a persistent, thrumming figure. As the album progresses, this refrain evokes the trance-inducing cycles of ceremonial music, drawing the listener deeper into Korwar's singular percussive universe.

9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget

Coming off an eight-year break, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a melancholy album of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-language, dub-influenced aesthetic that made her a staple in the Arab alternative scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is quiet and ruminative, singing tender melodies over the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop groove of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she adopts a wavering, yearning vibrato against north African synth lines and rattling electronic percussion. The production is sparse and restrained, yet this minimalism offers the perfect setting for Hamdan's emotive compositions to shine through. The album proves to be truly deserving of the wait.

Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Desaceleradas

Mexican electronic artist Debit excels at eerie reworkings of archival audio. On her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dub-inflected take of the shuffling Latin American musical style. Debit drags this sound to a near-halt, running its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm through layers of distortion and noise to produce a new, menacing rhythm. At turns atmospheric and discomfiting, Debit converts the joyous dancefloor sound of cumbia into a persistent, ghostly memory.

Number Seven: DJ K – Radio Libertadora!

Sheer intensity is the key term for the music of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a cacophony of alarms, explosive bass tones and screamed lyrics over the classic Brazilian genre of baile funk. This captures the propulsive sound of favela street parties. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the ferocity, adding everything from techno kick drums to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly hyperactive and punishingly loud forty-minute sonic journey. Give in to the assault and Vieira's brash productions become strangely exhilarating.

Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi

Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a newly appreciated gem. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an strikingly compelling blend of the synthetic sound of electronic keyboards and programmed drums with her ornate classical Indian vocal technique. Electronic percussion mirrors the wavelike tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody doubles the classic sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, bossa nova rhythm is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a driving disco bass groove. It's a party blend pioneered over a decade before the Asian Underground explosion.

Number Five: Enji – Resonance

Mongolian singer Enji's delicate latest record, Sonor, expands on her jazz-influenced sound to deliver some of her most wide-ranging music so far. Moving away from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs range from the soft jazz-pop melodics of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a sprightly, funk-inflected cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a live band rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains personal, inviting the listener into the gentle acoustics of her distinctive voice.

Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – Yarın Yoksa

Drawing on the 1960s legacy of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's third record alongside her group blends the electric jangle of the amplified traditional lute with drifting keyboard and classic soul melodies. It's a 1970s throwback sound grounded in Yıldırım's strong high register and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape aesthetic. Yet, on classic Turkish songs such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group reaches dynamic new territory. They craft slinking, downtempo grooves and powerful vocals that give a new, unconventional interpretation to the Anatolian psychedelic style.

3. Lido Pimienta – The Beauty

Catholic requiem mass music, Eastern European folk melodies and symphonic arrangements all come together on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary fourth album. Arranging music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett traverse 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 rhythmic dembow rhythms of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim