This Ten Best Worldwide Records of the Year 2025
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the international music that pushed boundaries. Presenting a selection of ten notable albums that shaped the year in music.
Number Ten: The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on repetitive drumming could sound like it isn't the most approachable listening experience. Yet, Indian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar converts this insistent rhythm into a unexpectedly magnetic album. Directing an trio of three drummers, Korwar develops a complex percussive dialect over the record's ten sections. The work references minimalist concepts from Steve Reich as well as classical Indian rhythmic patterns, everything tethered in the recurrence of a continual, thrumming motif. Over its duration, this refrain evokes the ceremonial rhythm of ritual music, pulling the listener deeper into Korwar's distinctive percussive realm.
Number Nine: The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
Coming off an eight-year break, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a contemplative album of songs. She expands on the Arabic-sung, dub-influenced style that made her a staple in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is gentle and thoughtful, delivering delicate melodies atop the bowing strings 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 quivering, longing vocal technique over north African synth lines and rattling electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is lean and restrained, yet this simplicity offers the perfect environment for Hamdan's deeply felt songwriting to resonate. This is a record that justifies the wait.
Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down
Mexican producer Debit has a knack for uncanny reimaginings of archival audio. For her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected take of the shuffling Latin American musical style. Debit slows this sound even further, filtering its signature synths and off-beat rhythm via sheets of murk and noise to create a fresh, foreboding rhythm. Periodically ambient and unsettling, Debit transforms the joyous dancefloor sound of cumbia into a enduring, ethereal echo.
Number Seven: The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sensory overload is the key term for the output of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a onslaught of sirens, explosive bass tones and shouted lyrics on top of the classic Brazilian genre of baile funk. This recreates the propulsive sound of urban celebrations. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the ferocity, incorporating everything from four-on-the-floor techno beats to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a notably hyperactive and overwhelmingly noisy 40-minute sonic journey. Give in to the assault and Vieira's unapologetic productions become strangely freeing.
Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a reissued masterpiece. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an unusually compelling fusion of the sharp sound of electronic keyboards and drum machines with her fluid Indian classical singing style. Drum machine patterns mimics the rolling tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody parallels the classic sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, bossa nova rhythm is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a driving funky bass rhythm. It's a club-ready hybrid pioneered more than ten years before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
5. Enji – Sonor
Mongolian singer Enji's gentle fourth album, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-inflected sound to offer some of her most diverse music to date. Departing from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks range from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodics of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and trilling 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 standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains close, drawing the listener into the gentle soundscape of her unique voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa
Inspired by the psychedelic tradition of Anatolian rock established by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work with her band Grup Şimşek merges the electric jangle of the amplified traditional lute with dreamy keyboard and soulful tunes. It's a retro-70s aesthetic grounded in Yıldırım's strong high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated aesthetic. Yet, on Turkish standards such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group reaches vibrant new territory. They create slinking, slow-burning grooves and lifting vocals that lend a fresh, off-kilter twist to the Turkish psych sound.
Number Three: Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Sacred music, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements merge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary fourth album. Orchestrating music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett traverse a vast range including the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated reggaeton-inspired beats of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim
