Our 10 Greatest Worldwide Records of the Year 2025
The past twelve months have offered a rich tapestry of worldwide sounds that expanded horizons. We explore ten remarkable albums that shaped the year in music.
Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
A continuous, 40-minute suite of insistent drumming might not seem the easiest listening experience. However, Indian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar transforms this persistent pulse into a strangely alluring piece. Guiding an group of three drummers, Korwar crafts a dense percussive language throughout the record's ten parts. The work references Steve Reich's phasing motifs alongside Indian classical phrasing, everything tethered in the recurrence of a continual, driving refrain. As the album progresses, this refrain starts to mirror the hypnotic repetition of ritual music, pulling the listener further into Korwar's distinctive percussive realm.
9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
Coming off an eight-year break, Arab singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan returns with a contemplative set of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-language, dub-influenced style that established her as a fixture in the Arab alternative scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is gentle and ruminative, singing soft melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rolling trip-hop groove of Vows. During more energetic moments such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a quivering, yearning vocal technique against electronic lines with North African flavors and skittering electronic percussion. The album's sound is lean and restrained, yet this austerity offers the ideal environment for Hamdan's emotive lyricism to shine through. It is that justifies the wait.
8. The Mexican Producer Debit – Desaceleradas
From Mexico producer Debit excels at uncanny reinterpretations of historical sounds. For her latest release, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dub-inflected version of the rhythmic Latin American dance music genre. Debit drags this sound down to a crawl, filtering its signature synths and off-beat rhythm via layers of distortion and noise to produce a novel, menacing beat. At turns ambient and uneasy, Debit transforms the joyous dancefloor sound of cumbia into a lasting, ethereal afterimage.
7. The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sheer intensity is the key term for the records of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira piles a tumult of alarms, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the classic Brazilian genre of baile funk. This emulates the driving sound of urban celebrations. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the ferocity, throwing in everything from techno kick drums to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly manic and overwhelmingly noisy 40-minute sonic journey. Surrender to the noise and Vieira's brash productions become strangely liberating.
6. The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco music and Punjabi folk melodies is a reissued treasure. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an unusually engaging combination of the sharp sound of 1980s synthesisers and drum machines with her melismatic classical Indian vocal technique. Electronic percussion mimics the wavelike tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody replicates the classic sound of the harmonium 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 walking disco bassline. It's a party blend delivered over a decade before the Asian Underground explosion.
Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor
From Mongolia singer Enji's delicate latest record, Sonor, expands on her jazz-inflected sound to offer some of her broadest music so far. Departing from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs range from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodics of downtempo number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-tinged cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Showcasing a ensemble rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay intimate, drawing the listener into the tender soundscape of her distinctive voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow
Drawing on the 60s heritage of Anatolian rock pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work alongside her group blends the electric jangle of the electrified saz with dreamy Mellotron and classic soul melodies. It's a retro-70s aesthetic rooted in Yıldırım's strong falsetto and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape aesthetic. But, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group ventures into vibrant new territory. They craft sinuous, slow-burning grooves and lifting vocals that lend a new, unconventional spin to the Turkish psych sound.
Number Three: Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Sacred music, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings merge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable latest work. Orchestrating music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett traverse a vast range including the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated dembow rhythms of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim
