Our 10 Top Global Records of 2025
The past twelve months have offered a rich tapestry of worldwide releases that expanded horizons. We explore ten exceptional albums that defined the year in music.
Number Ten: The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of repetitive drumming could sound like it isn't the most approachable listening experience. Yet, Indian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar transforms this insistent rhythm into a hypnotically captivating piece. Guiding an trio of three drummers, Korwar develops a intricate percussive dialect over the record's ten sections. The work channels the phasing techniques of Steve Reich alongside traditional Indian musical phrasing, each grounded in the reiteration of a ongoing, driving figure. As the album progresses, this refrain evokes the ceremonial rhythm of devotional music, pulling the listener further into Korwar's distinctive percussive world.
9. The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
After an long absence, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a mournful set of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-sung, dub-tinged style that cemented her status in the region's indie music scene since the nineties. Hamdan's voice is quiet and introspective, singing tender melodies atop the bowing strings 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 trembling, yearning vocal technique over electronic lines with North African flavors and rattling electronic percussion. The production is lean and subtle, yet this simplicity offers the perfect environment for Hamdan's expressive songwriting to take center stage. This is a record that justifies the long anticipation.
8. The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down
Mexican producer Debit excels at uncanny reinterpretations of traditional music. For her new album, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby version of the rhythmic Latin American dance genre. Debit decelerates this sound down to a crawl, processing its signature synths and off-beat rhythm through veils of murk and hiss to create a novel, menacing beat. Periodically atmospheric and discomfiting, Debit converts the celebratory dancefloor sound of cumbia into a enduring, ghostly memory.
7. The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Maximalism is the operative word for the output of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a onslaught of alarms, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the longstanding Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This emulates the energetic sound of neighborhood block parties. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the intensity, throwing in everything from driving techno rhythms to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a notably hyperactive and punishingly loud forty-minute listening experience. Give in to the noise and Vieira's bold productions become strangely liberating.
6. Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a rediscovered treasure. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an unusually compelling combination of the metallic sound of electronic keyboards and drum machines with her ornate classical Indian vocal technique. Electronic percussion mimics the undulating tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody doubles the classic sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. At other times, bossa nova rhythm comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a up-tempo disco bass groove. It's a club-ready hybrid delivered over a decade before the Asian Underground explosion.
Number Five: Enji – Resonance
From Mongolia vocalist Enji's soft fourth album, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-inflected sound to present some of her most diverse music yet. Stepping outside her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces travel from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodics of downtempo number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-tinged cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a live band rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains personal, pulling the listener into the gentle soundscape of her singular voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – If There Is No Tomorrow
Inspired by the 60s heritage of Anatolian rock pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's third record alongside her group fuses the distinctive buzz of the amplified traditional lute with dreamy keyboard and soulful tunes. It's a 1970s throwback sound anchored in Yıldırım's powerful high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. Yet, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group finds vibrant new territory. They develop smooth, downtempo grooves and lifting vocals that give a new, off-kilter twist to the Turkish psych sound.
3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Gregorian chants, Czech harpsichord folksong and orchestral strings all come together on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary latest work. Arranging music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through everything from the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic reggaeton-inspired beats of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim
