The 10 Most Outstanding Worldwide Records of the Year 2025
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the worldwide sounds that expanded horizons. Here is a countdown of ten notable albums that shaped the year in music.
10. The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
A continuous, 40-minute suite of insistent drumming might not seem the easiest musical proposition. But, Indian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar converts this driving beat into a hypnotically captivating work. Guiding an group of three drummers, Korwar creates a intricate percussive vocabulary over the record's ten parts. The work channels minimalist concepts from Steve Reich combined with traditional Indian musical phrasing, each grounded in the repetition of a persistent, pulsing motif. Over its duration, this refrain starts to mirror the hypnotic repetition of ritual music, pulling the listener deeper into Korwar's distinctive percussive realm.
Number Nine: The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
After an hiatus of eight years, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a mournful collection of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-sung, dub-influenced aesthetic that cemented her status in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the nineties. Hamdan's voice is gentle and introspective, singing soft melodies over the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop beat of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a trembling, yearning vocal technique against electronic lines with North African flavors and skittering electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is minimal and understated, yet this simplicity creates the perfect canvas for Hamdan's emotive compositions to take center stage. This is a record that justifies the wait.
8. The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down
Mexican electronic artist Debit has a knack for uncanny reimaginings of historical sounds. For her latest release, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected version of the rhythmic Latin American musical style. Debit drags this sound down to a crawl, filtering its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm through sheets of sludge and static to produce a novel, sinister beat. Periodically atmospheric and discomfiting, Debit morphs the celebratory party music of cumbia into a enduring, ethereal echo.
7. The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Maximalism is the operative word for the music of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a tumult of sirens, explosive bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the enduring Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This emulates the driving sound of favela street parties. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the intensity, incorporating everything from four-on-the-floor techno beats to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a especially hyperactive and overwhelmingly noisy 40-minute sonic journey. Submit to the noise and Vieira's brash productions become oddly freeing.
Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release of disco music and Punjabi folk melodies is a reissued treasure. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an strikingly engaging 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 tabla, while synthesiser melody replicates the traditional sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, Latin-inflected grooves takes center stage on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya boasts a up-tempo funky bass rhythm. It's a party blend delivered over a decade before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
Number Five: Enji – Sonor
From Mongolia singer Enji's soft fourth album, Sonor, expands on her jazz-inflected sound to present some of her broadest music yet. Stepping outside her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs range from the soft jazz-pop melodics of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-inflected cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a full backing band rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still intimate, drawing the listener into the warm acoustics of her distinctive voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow
Drawing on the psychedelic tradition of Turkish psychedelia established by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's new album alongside her group blends the distinctive buzz of the electrified saz with drifting keyboard and R&B-inflected lines. It's a 1970s throwback sound anchored in Yıldırım's powerful falsetto and influenced by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated sound. However, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group finds dynamic new territory. They develop sinuous, downtempo grooves and powerful vocals that impart a novel, quirky interpretation to the Turkish psych sound.
3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Catholic requiem mass music, Eastern European folk melodies and symphonic arrangements merge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's stunning latest work. Orchestrating music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through a vast range including the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic reggaeton-inspired beats of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim
