The Ten Most Outstanding Worldwide Records of the Year 2025
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the international sounds that expanded horizons. Presenting a selection of ten notable albums that defined the year in music.
Number Ten: The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
A continuous, 40-minute suite of cyclical percussion could sound like it isn't the most accessible listening experience. But, Indian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar turns this driving beat into a strangely alluring work. Leading an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar crafts a intricate percussive vocabulary throughout the record's ten parts. The work draws from the phasing techniques of Steve Reich as well as traditional Indian musical phrasing, everything tethered in the repetition of a continual, driving figure. As the album progresses, this refrain starts to mirror the ceremonial rhythm of devotional music, drawing the listener deeper into Korwar's distinctive percussive universe.
Number Nine: The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
After an hiatus of eight years, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan returns with a contemplative collection of songs. She expands on the Arabic-sung, dub-influenced sound that made her a staple in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the nineties. Hamdan's voice is soft and introspective, delivering soft melodies atop the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop beat of Vows. During more energetic moments such as Shadia and Abyss, she adopts a trembling, yearning vocal technique against north African synth lines and clattering electronic percussion. The album's sound is lean and restrained, yet this austerity provides the ideal canvas for Hamdan's expressive lyricism to take center stage. It is that justifies the long anticipation.
8. The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico producer Debit has a knack for eerie reinterpretations of archival audio. On her new album, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dub-inflected interpretation of the rhythmic Latin American dance genre. Debit slows this sound to a near-halt, filtering its signature synths and off-beat rhythm through layers of murk and noise to generate a novel, menacing groove. Periodically ambient and uneasy, Debit converts the joyous party music of cumbia into a enduring, ethereal echo.
7. The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Maximalism is the defining principle for the records of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira piles a cacophony of alarms, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics over the enduring Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This captures the propulsive sound of neighborhood block parties. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the ferocity, throwing in everything from techno kick drums to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a notably hyperactive and overwhelmingly noisy forty-minute sonic journey. Surrender to the cacophony and Vieira's bold productions become strangely liberating.
6. 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 compelling combination of the synthetic sound of 1980s synthesisers and drum machines with her ornate classical Indian vocal technique. Drum machine patterns mimics the undulating tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody parallels the traditional sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, bossa nova rhythm takes center stage on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a up-tempo funky bass rhythm. It's a dancefloor fusion created more than ten years before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor
Mongolian vocalist Enji's delicate fourth album, Sonor, expands on her jazz-inflected sound to deliver some of her broadest music so far. Departing from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces travel from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodies of downtempo number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-tinged cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Showcasing a live band rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay personal, inviting the listener into the tender acoustics of her unique voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – Yarın Yoksa
Inspired by the 1960s legacy of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work alongside her group blends the electric jangle of the amplified traditional lute with dreamy keyboard and soulful tunes. It's a 1970s throwback sound grounded 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 finds dynamic new territory. They create slinking, slow-burning grooves and powerful vocals that give a novel, off-kilter spin to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
Number Three: The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Sacred music, Czech harpsichord folksong and orchestral strings merge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable latest work. Arranging music for the sixty-member 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 dramatic counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic reggaeton-inspired beats of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim
