This Ten Greatest Worldwide Records of the Year 2025
The past twelve months have offered a rich tapestry of global releases that expanded horizons. Presenting a selection of ten exceptional albums that characterized the year in music.
10. Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of insistent drumming might not seem the most approachable musical proposition. Yet, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar transforms this driving beat into a unexpectedly magnetic album. Guiding an group of three drummers, Korwar develops a complex percussive vocabulary across the record's 10 movements. The album draws from Steve Reich's phasing motifs combined with classical Indian rhythmic patterns, everything tethered in the reiteration of a persistent, pulsing motif. Over its duration, this refrain evokes the hypnotic repetition of ceremonial music, drawing the listener deeper into Korwar's singular percussive realm.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
After an long absence, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a melancholy collection of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-sung, dub-influenced style that cemented her status in the Arab alternative scene since the nineties. Hamdan's voice is soft and ruminative, singing soft melodies over the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop groove of Vows. During more energetic moments such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a trembling, yearning vibrato over north African synth lines and clattering electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is sparse and understated, yet this minimalism provides the ideal setting for Hamdan's deeply felt songwriting to take center stage. It is truly deserving of the long anticipation.
Number Eight: Debit – Desaceleradas
Mexican producer Debit specializes in uncanny reworkings of traditional music. For her new album, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected version of the rhythmic Latin American musical style. Debit decelerates this sound even further, filtering its signature synths and syncopated rhythm through layers of distortion and noise to produce a fresh, menacing beat. Periodically atmospheric and unsettling, Debit morphs the joyous party music of cumbia into a enduring, ghostly memory.
7. The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sensory overload is the key term for the records of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a tumult of sirens, explosive bass tones and screamed lyrics over the classic Brazilian genre of baile funk. This emulates the propulsive sound of urban celebrations. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the ferocity, 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 40-minute sonic journey. Submit to the cacophony and Vieira's brash productions become oddly liberating.
6. Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco beats and Punjabi folk melodies is a newly appreciated gem. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an unusually compelling blend of the synthetic sound of 1980s synthesisers and drum machines with her ornate classical Indian vocal technique. Electronic percussion echoes the rolling tones of the tabla, while synthesiser melody parallels the classic sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, bossa nova rhythm comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a driving funky bass rhythm. 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 vocalist Enji's delicate fourth album, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-inflected sound to present some of her most wide-ranging music yet. Stepping outside her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs veer from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodies of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a energetic, funk-inflected cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Showcasing a live band rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains personal, inviting the listener into the tender soundscape of her singular voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow
Drawing on the 1960s legacy of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's third record with her band Grup Şimşek merges the metallic twang of the amplified traditional lute with dreamy Mellotron and classic soul melodies. It's a retro-70s aesthetic rooted in Yıldırım's strong high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. However, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group reaches lively new territory. They develop smooth, downtempo grooves and powerful vocals that give a novel, off-kilter twist to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
3. Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Gregorian chants, Czech harpsichord folksong and orchestral strings all come together on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's stunning fourth album. Arranging music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett explore 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 reggaeton-inspired beats of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim