This 10 Best Worldwide Records of the Year 2025
The past twelve months have offered a rich tapestry of global releases that pushed boundaries. We explore ten exceptional albums that defined the year in music.
Number Ten: The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on insistent drumming may not appear the easiest listening experience. Yet, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar transforms this persistent pulse into a strangely alluring piece. Guiding an group of three drummers, Korwar creates a dense percussive dialect over the record's ten parts. The work draws from the phasing techniques of Steve Reich as well as Indian classical phrasing, all anchored in the reiteration of a ongoing, driving figure. Over its duration, this refrain starts to mirror the trance-inducing cycles of ritual music, luring the listener further into Korwar's distinctive percussive world.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
Coming off an hiatus of eight years, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a mournful album of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-sung, dub-tinged style that made her a staple in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is gentle and thoughtful, delivering soft melodies over the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rolling trip-hop groove of Vows. During more energetic moments such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a trembling, longing vibrato against Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and clattering electronic percussion. The album's sound is sparse and understated, yet this simplicity creates the ideal canvas for Hamdan's emotive songwriting to resonate. The album proves to be well worth the wait.
Number Eight: Debit – Desaceleradas
Mexican producer Debit specializes in uncanny reimaginings of traditional music. On her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dubby interpretation of the shuffling Latin American musical style. Debit drags this sound down to a crawl, running its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm through veils of distortion and static to create a new, sinister groove. Periodically ambient and discomfiting, Debit transforms the celebratory dancefloor sound of cumbia into a persistent, ethereal echo.
Number Seven: DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sheer intensity is the operative word for the records of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira piles a onslaught of sirens, explosive bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the enduring Brazilian genre of baile funk. This recreates the propulsive sound of neighborhood block parties. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the energy, incorporating everything from techno kick drums to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a notably frenetic and deafeningly intense 40-minute listening experience. Submit to the cacophony and Vieira's brash productions become strangely liberating.
6. Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a rediscovered treasure. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an unusually captivating combination of the sharp sound of 1980s synthesisers and programmed drums with her fluid classical Indian vocal technique. Electronic percussion mimics the wavelike tones of the tabla, while synth lines doubles the classic sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. At other times, bossa nova rhythm comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya boasts a fast-paced disco bass groove. It's a club-ready hybrid created over a decade before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
Number Five: Enji – Resonance
From Mongolia vocalist Enji's soft latest record, Sonor, develops her jazz-influenced sound to present some of her broadest music to date. Moving away from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces range from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodies of downtempo number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-inflected cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a ensemble rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still personal, pulling the listener into the tender acoustics of her unique voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – If There Is No Tomorrow
Drawing on 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 blends the metallic twang of the electrified saz with woozy keyboard and R&B-inflected lines. It's a retro-70s aesthetic rooted in Yıldırım's powerful falsetto and influenced by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated sound. Yet, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group reaches dynamic new territory. They develop sinuous, slow-burning grooves and lifting vocals that lend a novel, unconventional interpretation to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
3. Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Gregorian chants, Czech harpsichord folksong 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 journey through everything from the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic dembow rhythms of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim
