This 10 Most Outstanding Worldwide Records of the Year 2025
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the worldwide music that expanded horizons. Presenting a selection of ten exceptional albums that shaped the year in music.
Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
A continuous, 40-minute suite of repetitive percussion may not appear the most accessible musical proposition. However, Indian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar turns this driving beat into a strangely alluring work. Directing an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar creates a dense percussive vocabulary across the record's ten sections. The work draws from Steve Reich's phasing motifs alongside traditional Indian musical phrasing, each grounded in the recurrence of a continual, driving figure. Over its duration, this refrain evokes the hypnotic repetition of devotional music, drawing the listener further into Korwar's unique percussive realm.
Number Nine: The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Following an eight-year break, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a mournful set 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 vocal delivery is gentle and ruminative, singing delicate melodies atop the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop beat of Vows. During more energetic moments such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a trembling, yearning vibrato against Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and skittering electronic percussion. The production is lean and understated, yet this minimalism creates the ideal environment for Hamdan's emotive songwriting to take center stage. This is a record well worth the wait.
8. Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico producer Debit has a knack for eerie reinterpretations of traditional music. For her new album, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dub-inflected version of the rhythmic Latin American dance genre. Debit drags this sound down to a crawl, processing its signature synths and off-beat rhythm through layers of distortion and hiss to create a fresh, menacing groove. At turns ambient and uneasy, Debit transforms the celebratory party music of cumbia into a enduring, spectral afterimage.
Number Seven: The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Maximalism is the operative word for the music of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a cacophony of alarms, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics over the longstanding Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This recreates the driving sound of urban celebrations. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the intensity, adding everything from driving techno rhythms to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a especially frenetic and deafeningly intense forty-minute listening experience. Surrender to the noise and Vieira's bold productions become strangely liberating.
Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco beats and Punjabi folk melodies is a newly appreciated gem. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an strikingly compelling blend of the sharp sound of 1980s synthesisers and programmed drums with her ornate Indian classical vocal technique. Drum machine patterns echoes the wavelike tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody parallels the classic sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. At other times, bossa nova rhythm is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya boasts a fast-paced disco bass groove. It's a club-ready hybrid delivered over a decade before the rise of Asian Underground music.
Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance
Mongolian vocalist Enji's delicate latest record, Sonor, develops her jazz-inflected sound to offer some of her most diverse music to date. Moving away from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces veer from the gentle jazz-pop melodies of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a energetic, funk-tinged cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a full backing band rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains intimate, inviting the listener into the tender acoustics of her distinctive voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow
Channeling the 1960s legacy of Turkish psychedelia established by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's third record alongside her group merges the electric jangle of the electrified saz with drifting Mellotron and R&B-inflected lines. It's a nostalgic vibe rooted in Yıldırım's powerful high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape aesthetic. However, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group finds dynamic new territory. They create sinuous, downtempo grooves and powerful vocals that impart a fresh, quirky twist to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
Number Three: The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Catholic requiem mass music, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements merge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary latest work. Orchestrating music for the sixty-member 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 syncopated reggaeton-inspired beats of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim
