Our 10 Best Worldwide Records of the Year 2025
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the international releases that expanded horizons. Presenting a selection of ten notable albums that defined the year in music.
10. Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on insistent drumming may not appear the most approachable listening experience. Yet, Indian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar turns this insistent rhythm into a hypnotically captivating piece. Guiding an trio of three drummers, Korwar crafts a complex percussive dialect across the record's ten sections. The album channels minimalist concepts from Steve Reich alongside classical Indian rhythmic patterns, all anchored in the recurrence of a ongoing, driving figure. Over its duration, this refrain begins to emulate the hypnotic repetition of ritual music, pulling the listener further into Korwar's singular percussive realm.
9. The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
Coming off an eight-year break, Arab singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a contemplative album of songs. She expands on the Arabic-language, dub-tinged sound that cemented her status in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the nineties. Hamdan's vocal delivery is gentle and thoughtful, delivering tender melodies over the string arrangements 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, yearning vocal technique over north African synth lines and clattering electronic percussion. The album's sound is lean and understated, yet this austerity offers the ideal canvas for Hamdan's deeply felt compositions to shine through. The album proves to be that justifies the long anticipation.
Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico producer Debit specializes in uncanny reworkings of archival audio. For her new album, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected version of the rhythmic Latin American musical style. Debit drags this sound even further, running its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm through sheets of distortion and noise to create a fresh, sinister rhythm. Periodically ambient and unsettling, Debit morphs the joyous dancefloor sound of cumbia into a persistent, ethereal afterimage.
7. The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Maximalism is the defining principle for the music of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a tumult of alarms, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics on top of the longstanding Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This recreates the driving sound of neighborhood block parties. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the intensity, incorporating everything from driving techno rhythms to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a especially manic and punishingly loud 40-minute sonic journey. Submit to the assault and Vieira's bold productions become unexpectedly exhilarating.
Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release of disco beats and Punjabi folk melodies is a reissued gem. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an strikingly compelling fusion of the sharp sound of early synthesizers and drum machines with her ornate Indian classical vocal technique. Electronic percussion mimics the undulating tones of the tabla, while synth lines doubles the traditional sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. At other times, bossa nova rhythm is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a up-tempo disco bass groove. It's a party blend pioneered more than ten years before the rise of Asian Underground music.
Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor
Mongolian singer Enji's gentle fourth album, Sonor, develops her jazz-influenced sound to present some of her broadest music yet. Departing from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces veer from the soft jazz-pop melodies of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-inflected cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a ensemble rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still intimate, inviting the listener into the warm soundscape of her unique voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – If There Is No Tomorrow
Drawing on the 1960s legacy of Turkish psychedelia established by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's third record with her band Grup Şimşek merges the distinctive buzz of the electrified saz with woozy keyboard and soulful tunes. It's a retro-70s aesthetic grounded in Yıldırım's commanding falsetto and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. But, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group reaches vibrant new territory. They create slinking, slow-burning grooves and powerful vocals that impart a novel, unconventional interpretation to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
Number Three: The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Catholic requiem mass music, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements all come together on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's stunning latest work. Orchestrating music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through a vast range including the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic dembow rhythms of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim
