Our Ten Most Outstanding Global Records of 2025
The past twelve months have offered a rich tapestry of global releases that pushed boundaries. Presenting a selection of ten remarkable albums that defined the year in music.
Number Ten: The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of insistent drumming might not seem the most accessible listening experience. But, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar transforms this persistent pulse into a unexpectedly magnetic work. Guiding an trio of three drummers, Korwar creates a intricate percussive vocabulary across the record's ten parts. The album draws from the phasing techniques of Steve Reich combined with traditional Indian musical phrasing, each grounded in the recurrence of a persistent, pulsing refrain. As the album progresses, this refrain begins to emulate the ceremonial rhythm of ceremonial music, drawing the listener deeper into Korwar's distinctive percussive realm.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
After an long absence, Arab singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan returns with a contemplative album 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 quiet and thoughtful, delivering tender melodies over the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop groove of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a quivering, longing vibrato against Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and skittering electronic percussion. The album's sound is lean and understated, yet this minimalism provides the perfect canvas for Hamdan's expressive songwriting to resonate. It is truly deserving of the long anticipation.
8. The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico electronic artist Debit excels at haunting reworkings of historical sounds. On her latest release, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dub-inflected take of the shuffling Latin American dance genre. Debit decelerates this sound down to a crawl, filtering its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm through layers of distortion and noise to generate a new, sinister rhythm. Sometimes ambient and discomfiting, Debit transforms the exuberant party music of cumbia into a persistent, ghostly memory.
7. The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sheer intensity is the operative word for the music of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a cacophony of alarms, explosive bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the enduring Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This captures the propulsive sound of urban celebrations. On his new record, 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 hyperactive and deafeningly intense forty-minute sonic journey. Surrender to the cacophony and Vieira's unapologetic productions become strangely liberating.
6. Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album 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 strikingly engaging fusion of the metallic sound of 1980s synthesisers and drum machines with her fluid classical Indian singing style. Drum machine patterns echoes the undulating tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody replicates the traditional sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, Latin-inflected grooves comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a driving disco bass groove. It's a party blend delivered over a decade before the rise of Asian Underground music.
5. Enji – Sonor
Mongolian singer Enji's soft latest record, Sonor, expands on her jazz-inflected sound to deliver some of her broadest music yet. Departing from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs range from the soft jazz-pop 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 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a live band rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay intimate, pulling the listener into the warm acoustics of her singular voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa
Inspired by the psychedelic tradition of Turkish psychedelia established by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work alongside her group fuses the metallic twang of the amplified traditional lute with woozy keyboard and soulful tunes. It's a 1970s throwback sound anchored in Yıldırım's commanding high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape aesthetic. Yet, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group ventures into dynamic new territory. They develop smooth, slow-burning grooves and lifting vocals that give a new, unconventional spin to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
Number Three: The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Gregorian chants, Eastern European folk melodies and symphonic arrangements merge on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable fourth album. Orchestrating music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett explore a vast range including the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated dembow rhythms of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim