Our 10 Best Global Records of the Year 2025
Looking back on the musical landscape of international sounds that pushed boundaries. Presenting a selection of ten remarkable albums that shaped the year in music.
Number Ten: The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
A continuous, 40-minute suite of cyclical percussion might not seem the most approachable listening experience. But, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar transforms this insistent rhythm into a unexpectedly magnetic piece. Guiding an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar creates a complex percussive language across the record's ten parts. The album draws from minimalist concepts from Steve Reich alongside classical Indian rhythmic patterns, everything tethered in the recurrence of a ongoing, driving figure. Over its duration, this refrain starts to mirror the ceremonial rhythm of ritual music, drawing the listener deeper into Korwar's distinctive percussive universe.
9. The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
After an eight-year break, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan returns with a mournful collection of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-sung, dub-tinged aesthetic that established her as a fixture in the Arab alternative scene since the nineties. Hamdan's voice is quiet and ruminative, delivering delicate melodies over the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop groove of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a quivering, yearning vibrato over Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and clattering electronic percussion. The album's sound is minimal and subtle, yet this austerity offers the ideal environment for Hamdan's emotive songwriting to resonate. It is well worth the long anticipation.
8. The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico electronic artist Debit excels at uncanny reinterpretations of archival audio. For her latest release, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected take of the rhythmic Latin American dance music genre. Debit decelerates this sound to a near-halt, processing its signature synths and off-beat rhythm through veils of distortion and hiss to generate a new, menacing groove. Sometimes ambient and uneasy, Debit transforms the joyous party music of cumbia into a lasting, ethereal memory.
Number Seven: DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sensory overload is the defining principle for the output of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira piles a tumult of sirens, explosive bass tones and shouted lyrics over the enduring Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This captures the energetic sound of urban celebrations. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the ferocity, throwing in everything from driving techno rhythms to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a notably hyperactive and deafeningly intense forty-minute sonic journey. Surrender to the cacophony and Vieira's bold productions become strangely freeing.
Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a newly appreciated treasure. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an remarkably compelling fusion of the synthetic sound of 1980s synthesisers and drum machines with her melismatic Indian classical singing style. Drum machine patterns mirrors the undulating tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody doubles the traditional sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. At other times, Latin-inflected grooves is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a up-tempo walking disco bassline. It's a dancefloor fusion created more than ten years before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
Number Five: Enji – Sonor
From Mongolia singer Enji's soft latest record, Sonor, develops her jazz-influenced sound to present some of her most diverse music to date. Departing from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks veer from the gentle jazz-pop melodies of downtempo number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a sprightly, funk-tinged cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a ensemble rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still close, drawing the listener into the gentle soundscape of her distinctive voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – If There Is No Tomorrow
Channeling the 1960s legacy of Turkish psychedelia established by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work alongside her group merges the distinctive buzz of the electrified saz with dreamy keyboard and soulful tunes. It's a retro-70s aesthetic grounded in Yıldırım's commanding high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. Yet, on Turkish standards such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group ventures into vibrant new territory. They create smooth, slow-burning grooves and soaring vocals that lend a new, quirky interpretation to the Turkish psych sound.
3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Catholic requiem mass music, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements merge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable latest work. Arranging music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through 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 dembow rhythms of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim
