Our 10 Top Global Records of the Year 2025
The past twelve months have offered a rich tapestry of worldwide releases that pushed boundaries. Presenting a selection of ten notable albums that shaped the year in music.
Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on repetitive percussion could sound like it isn't the most accessible listening experience. However, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar turns this persistent pulse into a hypnotically captivating piece. Guiding an group of three drummers, Korwar crafts a complex percussive vocabulary across the record's 10 movements. The work draws from Steve Reich's phasing motifs combined with traditional Indian musical phrasing, all anchored in the recurrence of a persistent, pulsing figure. As the album progresses, this refrain evokes the trance-inducing cycles of ceremonial music, luring the listener further into Korwar's distinctive percussive world.
Number Nine: The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
Coming off an hiatus of eight years, Arab singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan returns with a contemplative album of songs. She expands on the Arabic-sung, dub-influenced style that cemented her status in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is quiet and thoughtful, delivering soft melodies over the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop groove of Vows. During more energetic moments such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a trembling, longing vocal technique against electronic lines with North African flavors and skittering electronic percussion. The album's sound is minimal and understated, yet this austerity provides the ideal environment for Hamdan's expressive lyricism to resonate. The album proves to be truly deserving of the wait.
Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down
Mexican producer Debit has a knack for uncanny reimaginings of traditional music. On her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected interpretation of the shuffling Latin American musical style. Debit drags this sound to a near-halt, processing its signature synths and syncopated rhythm via veils of murk and hiss to produce a novel, menacing rhythm. Sometimes ambient and unsettling, Debit transforms the joyous party music of cumbia into a persistent, ethereal memory.
Number Seven: The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sheer intensity is the defining principle for the music of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira piles a tumult of sirens, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics over the longstanding Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This recreates the driving sound of urban celebrations. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the energy, adding everything from techno kick drums to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a especially hyperactive and deafeningly intense 40-minute listening experience. Give in to the cacophony and Vieira's unapologetic productions become oddly liberating.
6. The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco beats and Punjabi folk melodies is a newly appreciated treasure. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an strikingly engaging blend of the metallic sound of early synthesizers and programmed drums with her ornate classical Indian singing style. Electronic percussion echoes the undulating tones of the traditional drums, while synth lines doubles the classic sound of the harmonium 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 boasts a driving disco bass groove. It's a party blend delivered over a decade before the rise of Asian Underground music.
5. The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance
Mongolian singer Enji's delicate fourth album, Sonor, develops her jazz-influenced sound to present some of her most diverse music to date. Moving away from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces range from the gentle jazz-pop melodics of downtempo number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a energetic, funk-tinged cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Showcasing a ensemble rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still personal, drawing the listener into the gentle acoustics of her singular voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – Yarın Yoksa
Channeling the 1960s legacy of Anatolian rock pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's third record alongside her group blends the distinctive buzz of the amplified traditional lute with woozy Mellotron and soulful tunes. It's a retro-70s aesthetic grounded in Yıldırım's strong high register and influenced by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated sound. But, on classic Turkish songs such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group finds dynamic new territory. They develop sinuous, slow-burning grooves and lifting vocals that give a new, off-kilter twist to the Turkish psych sound.
3. Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Catholic requiem mass music, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings converge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's stunning fourth album. Arranging music for the sixty-member 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 syncopated reggaeton-inspired beats of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim
