The 10 Best Global Music Albums of 2023
The best global music comes from places around the globe and then goes to others. If you find something new, those connections therein have stretched farther.
The best global music comes from places around the globe and then goes to others. If you find something new, those connections therein have stretched farther.
On Okantomi, Okan continue to engage with many of the interwoven styles and stories critical to their own experiences of Cuban music and personhood.
On Onde Está o Jeca?, Brazil’s Soprano a Viola blur the boundaries between rural and urban popular music genres to question the stereotypes therein.
Alam Khan’s The Resonance Between employs techniques from Hindustani and European art music traditions, but it’s about more than just fusion.
A tremendous combination of old and new, Hannu Saha & Pakasteet’s Taas kerran, äkkiä should inspire artists looking to take long-held tradition into new spaces.
The musical language of Al Oud joins concepts of Nubia and Arabia to express the intersections in which Hamza El Din lived.
Eliades Ochoa may have grown up in a rustic milieu, but he’s traveled many miles since and picked up some sophisticated sounds on the way.
Israeli musician Dudu Tassa and Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood join forces with various vocalists for a fresh, inspiring interpretation of Middle Eastern music.
At her most triumphant, Sheila Chandra pushed her voice into physical and affective spaces, nothing short of wondrous, exceeding the boundaries of pop and art music.
Eliades Ochoa’s Guajiro shows an understanding of musical roots. It feels fresh, endowed with a collaborative spirit that makes for something wonderfully new.
Tinariwen link Nashville and North Africa on Amatssou in ways well suited to a definition of outlaw country that includes their rebellious rock.
Connections with Jack White and Daniel Lanois are great, but West African blues collective Tinariwen had to navigate Covid and political unrest to deliver their surprisingly exuberant new LP.