The 10 Greatest Worldwide Records of 2025
The past twelve months have offered a rich tapestry of international sounds that expanded horizons. Presenting a selection of ten remarkable albums that defined the year in music.
Number Ten: The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
A continuous, 40-minute suite of cyclical percussion could sound like it isn't the most accessible musical proposition. However, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar turns this driving beat into a unexpectedly magnetic album. Leading an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar develops a intricate percussive language over the record's ten parts. His composition draws from the phasing techniques of Steve Reich combined with Indian classical phrasing, everything tethered in the recurrence of a ongoing, driving refrain. The longer one listens, this refrain begins to emulate the ceremonial rhythm of ceremonial music, pulling the listener deeper into Korwar's distinctive percussive universe.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Coming off an long absence, Lebanese vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan returns with a mournful set of songs. She expands on the Arabic-sung, dub-influenced sound that established her as a fixture in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is gentle and thoughtful, delivering delicate melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop groove of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a quivering, longing vocal technique against north African synth lines and clattering electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is lean and subtle, yet this austerity creates the perfect setting for Hamdan's expressive compositions to take center stage. The album proves to be well worth the long anticipation.
8. Debit – Slowed Down
Mexican producer Debit specializes in haunting reimaginings of historical sounds. For her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dub-inflected version of the shuffling Latin American dance music genre. Debit slows this sound to a near-halt, filtering its signature synths and syncopated rhythm via sheets of distortion and hiss to create a new, menacing groove. Sometimes atmospheric and unsettling, Debit morphs the exuberant dancefloor sound of cumbia into a enduring, ethereal afterimage.
7. DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sheer intensity is the operative word for the output of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira piles a cacophony of alarms, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics over the longstanding Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This captures the driving sound of neighborhood block parties. On his follow-up release, 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 especially frenetic and punishingly loud forty-minute sonic journey. Give in to the assault and Vieira's bold productions become strangely liberating.
Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco music and Punjabi folk melodies is a newly appreciated masterpiece. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an unusually engaging blend of the synthetic sound of 1980s synthesisers and drum machines with her fluid Indian classical vocal technique. Drum machine patterns mimics the rolling tones of the tabla, while synth lines doubles the classic sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, Latin-inflected grooves is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a driving walking disco bassline. It's a dancefloor fusion pioneered over a decade before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor
Mongolian singer Enji's soft latest record, Sonor, develops her jazz-influenced sound to deliver some of her broadest music so far. Stepping outside her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs veer from the soft jazz-pop melodies of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a sprightly, funk-tinged cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a ensemble rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still personal, inviting the listener into the tender acoustics of her distinctive voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – If There Is No Tomorrow
Drawing on the psychedelic tradition of Anatolian rock established by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's third record alongside her group merges the electric jangle of the electrified saz with drifting keyboard and soulful tunes. It's a retro-70s aesthetic rooted in Yıldırım's strong falsetto and shaped by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated sound. Yet, on Turkish standards such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group reaches vibrant new territory. They craft smooth, slow-burning grooves and soaring vocals that give a fresh, unconventional interpretation to the Turkish psych sound.
Number Three: Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Gregorian chants, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings all come together on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary fourth album. Arranging 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 theatrical interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic reggaeton-inspired beats of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim