Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan returns with mournful minimalism, Mohinder Kaur Bhamra’s 1982 album of Punjabi disco makes a comeback and Guatemalan duo Titanic serve up ecstatic tracks
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A 40-minute suite of continuous, repetitive drumming might not sound like the most accessible music but south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar’s latest album, There Is Beauty, There Already, turns this concept of insistent rhythm into strangely alluring work. Leading an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar develops a dense percussive language throughout the record’s 10 movements, channelling Steve Reich’s phasing motifs as well as Indian classical phrasing and anchoring each in the repetition of a continual, thrumming refrain. As the album continues, the refrain begins to emulate the hypnotic repetition of ceremonial rhythm, drawing us further into Korwar’s percussive world the longer we listen.
After an eight-year break, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan returns with a mournful collection of songs expanding on the Arabic-language, dub-influenced sound that has made her a staple of the region’s indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan’s voice is quiet and ruminative, singing tender melodies over the bowing strings of Hon and the rumbling trip-hop groove of Vows, while on livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a wavering, yearning vibrato over north African synth lines and rattling electronic percussion. The production is sparse and understated yet that minimalism provides the perfect setting for Hamdan’s emotive songwriting to shine through. Well worth the wait.
