Our Ten Greatest Worldwide Records of the Year 2025
Looking back on the musical landscape of international sounds that pushed boundaries. We explore ten remarkable albums that shaped the year in music.
Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on cyclical drumming might not seem the most approachable listening experience. But, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar converts this driving beat into a hypnotically captivating album. Directing an trio of three drummers, Korwar crafts a dense percussive vocabulary throughout the record's ten parts. His composition channels minimalist concepts from Steve Reich combined with traditional Indian musical phrasing, everything tethered in the recurrence of a ongoing, driving motif. The longer one listens, this refrain begins to emulate the trance-inducing cycles of devotional music, drawing the listener further into Korwar's singular percussive realm.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
After an hiatus of eight years, Arab singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a mournful set of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-sung, dub-tinged style that cemented her status in the Arab alternative scene since the nineties. Hamdan's vocal delivery is gentle and thoughtful, singing tender melodies over the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop beat of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she adopts a wavering, longing vocal technique over north African synth lines and rattling electronic percussion. The album's sound is sparse and subtle, yet this minimalism provides the perfect setting for Hamdan's expressive compositions to shine through. The album proves to be truly deserving of the long anticipation.
Number Eight: Debit – Desaceleradas
Mexican electronic artist Debit excels at eerie reinterpretations of archival audio. On her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dubby version of the rhythmic Latin American dance music genre. Debit drags this sound even further, filtering its signature synths and off-beat rhythm via sheets of distortion and static to produce a fresh, sinister rhythm. Periodically atmospheric and discomfiting, Debit morphs the joyous party music of cumbia into a persistent, ghostly afterimage.
Number Seven: The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Maximalism is the key term for the output of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a onslaught of sirens, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics over the classic Brazilian genre of baile funk. This captures the driving sound of neighborhood block parties. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the energy, incorporating everything from techno kick drums to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a notably frenetic and overwhelmingly noisy forty-minute sonic journey. Surrender to the assault and Vieira's brash productions become unexpectedly exhilarating.
Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco beats and Punjabi folk melodies is a newly appreciated treasure. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an unusually captivating fusion of the metallic sound of electronic keyboards and programmed drums with her ornate Indian classical vocal technique. Drum machine patterns mirrors the rolling tones of the traditional drums, while synth lines parallels the classic sound of the reed organ 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 fast-paced walking disco bassline. It's a dancefloor fusion pioneered more than ten years before the Asian Underground explosion.
5. Enji – Sonor
From Mongolia vocalist Enji's delicate fourth album, Sonor, develops her jazz-inflected sound to present some of her most diverse music yet. Departing from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces veer from the gentle jazz-pop melodics of downtempo number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-inflected cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Showcasing a live band rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still intimate, drawing the listener into the tender soundscape of her distinctive voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow
Inspired by the psychedelic tradition of Anatolian rock pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's new album with her band Grup Şimşek fuses the metallic twang of the electrified saz with dreamy Mellotron and R&B-inflected lines. It's a nostalgic vibe rooted in Yıldırım's powerful falsetto and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape aesthetic. Yet, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group ventures into lively new territory. They craft smooth, downtempo grooves and lifting vocals that impart a new, quirky interpretation to the Turkish psych sound.
3. Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Catholic requiem mass music, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings converge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary latest work. Orchestrating music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett traverse everything from the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic dembow rhythms of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim
