Our 10 Best Worldwide Records of 2025
Looking back on the musical landscape of international releases that pushed boundaries. Presenting a selection of ten exceptional albums that characterized the year in music.
10. Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of repetitive percussion may not appear the easiest listening experience. However, Indian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar turns this persistent pulse into a unexpectedly magnetic work. Leading an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar creates a intricate percussive dialect over the record's ten sections. His composition references the phasing techniques of Steve Reich alongside traditional Indian musical phrasing, each grounded in the recurrence of a ongoing, pulsing refrain. The longer one listens, this refrain begins to emulate the hypnotic repetition of ceremonial music, pulling the listener deeper into Korwar's distinctive percussive world.
9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
After an eight-year break, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a mournful collection of songs. She expands on the Arabic-language, dub-influenced style that established her as a fixture in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is soft and thoughtful, singing delicate melodies over the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop beat of Vows. During more energetic moments such as Shadia and Abyss, she adopts a trembling, yearning vibrato against Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and clattering electronic percussion. The production is sparse and restrained, yet this minimalism offers the perfect environment for Hamdan's deeply felt songwriting to take center stage. The album proves to be that justifies the wait.
8. Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico electronic artist Debit specializes in eerie reimaginings of historical sounds. On her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby take of the rhythmic Latin American dance genre. Debit drags this sound even further, filtering its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm through veils of sludge and noise to produce a novel, sinister beat. At turns ambient and discomfiting, Debit transforms the exuberant dancefloor sound of cumbia into a lasting, ethereal echo.
Number Seven: The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Maximalism is the operative word for the music of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a tumult of sirens, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics over the enduring Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This emulates the driving sound of favela street parties. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the intensity, incorporating everything from driving techno rhythms to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a especially hyperactive and deafeningly intense 40-minute listening experience. Surrender to the noise and Vieira's brash productions become unexpectedly liberating.
6. Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco beats and traditional Punjabi tunes is a rediscovered treasure. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an remarkably captivating combination of the metallic sound of electronic keyboards and programmed drums with her ornate classical Indian vocal technique. Drum machine patterns mimics the undulating tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody replicates the classic sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Elsewhere, Latin-inflected grooves takes center stage on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a fast-paced funky bass rhythm. It's a club-ready hybrid delivered over a decade before the Asian Underground explosion.
5. Enji – Sonor
From Mongolia singer Enji's delicate latest record, Sonor, develops her jazz-inflected sound to present some of her most wide-ranging music yet. Stepping outside her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs travel from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodies of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German-language narration 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 live band rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still personal, pulling the listener into the gentle soundscape of her singular voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow
Channeling the 1960s legacy of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work alongside her group blends the distinctive buzz of the electrified saz with dreamy Mellotron and soulful tunes. It's a 1970s throwback sound anchored in Yıldırım's strong falsetto and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. But, on classic Turkish songs such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group ventures into vibrant new territory. They develop slinking, downtempo grooves and powerful vocals that lend a fresh, quirky interpretation to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Gregorian chants, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings merge on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's stunning latest work. Orchestrating music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through everything from the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic reggaeton-inspired beats of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim
