The Ten Finest Global Records of the Year 2025
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the international releases that pushed boundaries. We explore ten exceptional albums that characterized the year in music.
Number Ten: The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of repetitive drumming could sound like it isn't the most approachable musical proposition. But, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar converts this insistent rhythm into a hypnotically captivating piece. Guiding an group of three drummers, Korwar develops a dense percussive language over the record's 10 movements. The work references minimalist concepts from Steve Reich as well as Indian classical phrasing, all anchored in the reiteration of a persistent, thrumming figure. The longer one listens, this refrain evokes the hypnotic repetition of ritual music, pulling the listener deeper into Korwar's unique percussive realm.
9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
After an eight-year break, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a melancholy collection of songs. She expands on the Arabic-sung, dub-tinged style that cemented her status in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is soft and ruminative, singing soft melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop groove of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she adopts a wavering, longing vocal technique over electronic lines with North African flavors and skittering electronic percussion. The album's sound is lean and restrained, yet this simplicity offers the perfect setting for Hamdan's emotive songwriting to resonate. It is well worth the wait.
8. The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down
Mexican electronic artist Debit has a knack for eerie reimaginings of historical sounds. On her latest release, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby version of the rhythmic Latin American musical style. Debit slows this sound down to a crawl, filtering its signature synths and syncopated rhythm via sheets of murk and hiss to generate a novel, foreboding beat. At turns ambient and discomfiting, Debit morphs the exuberant party music of cumbia into a lasting, ghostly memory.
7. The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sheer intensity is the key term for the output of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a onslaught of alarms, explosive bass tones and shouted lyrics on top of the classic Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This emulates the propulsive sound of favela street parties. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the intensity, incorporating everything from techno kick drums to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly frenetic and deafeningly intense forty-minute sonic journey. Surrender to the assault and Vieira's bold productions become strangely freeing.
Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a reissued treasure. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an strikingly captivating blend of the synthetic sound of electronic keyboards and drum machines with her fluid Indian classical vocal technique. Drum machine patterns mimics the undulating tones of the traditional drums, while synth lines parallels the classic sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Elsewhere, bossa nova rhythm is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a fast-paced funky bass rhythm. It's a party blend pioneered more than ten years before the rise of Asian Underground music.
Number Five: Enji – Sonor
Mongolian vocalist Enji's gentle fourth album, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-inflected sound to offer some of her most wide-ranging music so far. Moving away from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces travel from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodics of downtempo 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 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a ensemble rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains intimate, inviting the listener into the warm soundscape of her unique voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow
Drawing on the 1960s legacy of Anatolian rock established by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work with her band Grup Şimşek fuses the electric jangle of the amplified traditional lute with drifting Mellotron and classic soul melodies. It's a nostalgic vibe anchored in Yıldırım's powerful falsetto and shaped by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated sound. However, on Turkish standards such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group ventures into lively new territory. They create smooth, slow-burning grooves and powerful vocals that give a novel, off-kilter interpretation to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
Number Three: Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Catholic requiem mass music, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements all come together on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's stunning fourth album. Orchestrating music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through everything from the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic 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
