This Ten Greatest Worldwide Albums of 2025
Looking back on the musical landscape of global sounds that expanded horizons. Presenting a selection of ten remarkable albums that shaped the year in music.
Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of repetitive drumming may not appear the most approachable musical proposition. However, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar turns this insistent rhythm into a unexpectedly magnetic piece. Guiding an trio of three drummers, Korwar creates a dense percussive language over the record's 10 movements. The work channels the phasing techniques of Steve Reich combined with classical Indian rhythmic patterns, all anchored in the reiteration of a continual, driving motif. The longer one listens, this refrain begins to emulate the hypnotic repetition of ceremonial music, luring the listener deeper into Korwar's distinctive percussive world.
9. The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
Following an long absence, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a contemplative album of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-language, dub-tinged aesthetic that made her a staple in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is gentle and thoughtful, singing tender melodies atop the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop groove of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a wavering, yearning vibrato against north African synth lines and skittering electronic percussion. The album's sound is lean and subtle, yet this simplicity provides the perfect canvas for Hamdan's expressive lyricism to shine through. This is a record truly deserving of the wait.
Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico electronic artist Debit specializes in haunting reworkings of historical sounds. For her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dub-inflected take of the rhythmic Latin American musical style. Debit drags this sound down to a crawl, running its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm through sheets of distortion and noise to produce a new, foreboding groove. Sometimes atmospheric and unsettling, Debit transforms the exuberant dancefloor sound of cumbia into a lasting, spectral memory.
7. DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Maximalism is the key term for the music of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a tumult of alarms, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics over the enduring Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This captures the propulsive sound of neighborhood block parties. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the energy, incorporating everything from driving techno rhythms to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a especially frenetic and overwhelmingly noisy forty-minute listening experience. Surrender to the cacophony and Vieira's unapologetic productions become strangely exhilarating.
6. The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release of disco beats and Punjabi folk melodies is a reissued treasure. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an strikingly captivating blend of the metallic sound of early synthesizers and drum machines with her melismatic Indian classical vocal technique. Drum machine patterns echoes the wavelike tones of the traditional drums, while synth lines doubles the traditional sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. At other times, Latin-inflected grooves takes center stage on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya boasts a up-tempo walking disco bassline. It's a club-ready hybrid created more than ten years before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
5. Enji – Resonance
Mongolian singer Enji's soft new release, Sonor, develops her jazz-inflected sound to deliver some of her broadest music so far. Stepping outside her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces range from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodics of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a sprightly, funk-inflected cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a full backing band rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still intimate, pulling the listener into the tender soundscape of her distinctive voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – Yarın Yoksa
Drawing on the 60s heritage of Anatolian rock established by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's new album alongside her group merges the electric jangle of the electrified saz with dreamy Mellotron and soulful tunes. It's a nostalgic vibe grounded in Yıldırım's powerful falsetto and shaped by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated sound. However, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group finds vibrant new territory. They create slinking, slow-burning grooves and powerful vocals that impart a novel, unconventional twist to the Turkish psych sound.
Number Three: The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Sacred music, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements all come together on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's stunning fourth album. Orchestrating music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through a vast range including the Gregorian chants 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
