This Ten Most Outstanding Global Records of the Year 2025
Looking back on the musical landscape of international sounds that pushed boundaries. Presenting a selection of ten remarkable albums that characterized the year in music.
10. Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on insistent percussion might not seem the most approachable listening experience. Yet, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar converts this driving beat into a strangely alluring piece. Directing an trio of three drummers, Korwar develops a intricate percussive language over the record's ten sections. His composition draws from Steve Reich's phasing motifs as well as Indian classical phrasing, everything tethered in the reiteration of a continual, thrumming motif. As the album progresses, this refrain evokes the hypnotic repetition of ritual music, drawing the listener further into Korwar's distinctive percussive world.
9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
After an long absence, Lebanese vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan returns with a melancholy collection of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-language, dub-influenced aesthetic that established her as a fixture in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is soft and thoughtful, singing soft 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 quivering, longing vocal technique over Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and skittering electronic percussion. The album's sound is minimal and subtle, yet this minimalism provides the ideal setting for Hamdan's emotive compositions to take center stage. This is a record truly deserving of the long anticipation.
Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico electronic artist Debit excels at haunting reinterpretations of historical sounds. For her latest release, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected version of the rhythmic Latin American musical style. Debit slows this sound to a near-halt, processing its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm via layers of sludge and static to produce a novel, foreboding rhythm. Sometimes atmospheric and discomfiting, Debit converts the celebratory party music of cumbia into a lasting, spectral memory.
Number Seven: DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sheer intensity is the defining principle for the music of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a cacophony of alarms, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics over the enduring Brazilian genre of baile funk. This recreates the driving sound of neighborhood block parties. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the energy, incorporating everything from techno kick drums to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a notably frenetic and punishingly loud forty-minute listening experience. Submit to the cacophony and Vieira's bold productions become unexpectedly freeing.
6. Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a newly appreciated gem. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an remarkably compelling blend of the sharp sound of 1980s synthesisers and drum machines with her fluid classical Indian singing style. Electronic percussion mimics the rolling tones of the tabla, while synthesiser melody parallels the traditional sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Elsewhere, bossa nova rhythm is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya boasts a driving walking disco bassline. It's a club-ready hybrid pioneered over a decade before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
5. The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance
From Mongolia vocalist Enji's delicate fourth album, Sonor, expands on her jazz-influenced sound to offer some of her broadest music yet. Moving away from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces veer from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodics of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a energetic, funk-tinged cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a ensemble rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay personal, pulling the listener into the gentle acoustics of her unique voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – Yarın Yoksa
Drawing on the 1960s legacy of Anatolian rock pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work alongside her group blends the metallic twang of the electrified saz with dreamy keyboard and classic soul melodies. It's a retro-70s aesthetic grounded in Yıldırım's commanding falsetto and influenced by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated sound. However, on Turkish standards such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group reaches dynamic new territory. They craft sinuous, downtempo grooves and soaring vocals that lend a novel, quirky interpretation to the Turkish psych sound.
Number Three: Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Gregorian chants, Czech harpsichord folksong and orchestral strings all come together on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's stunning latest work. Arranging music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett explore a vast range including the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic dembow rhythms of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim
