Our 10 Finest Worldwide Albums of 2025
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the worldwide music that pushed boundaries. We explore ten remarkable albums that characterized the year in music.
Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on insistent drumming could sound like it isn't the most approachable musical proposition. But, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar converts this driving beat into a strangely alluring piece. Leading an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar crafts a intricate percussive vocabulary across the record's ten parts. His composition channels Steve Reich's phasing motifs as well as traditional Indian musical phrasing, each grounded in the reiteration of a persistent, pulsing refrain. As the album progresses, this refrain begins to emulate the ceremonial rhythm of ritual music, luring the listener further into Korwar's unique percussive realm.
9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
Coming off an eight-year break, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan returns with a melancholy album of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-sung, dub-influenced style that established her as a fixture in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is gentle and introspective, singing soft melodies over the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop groove of Vows. During more energetic moments such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a quivering, yearning vocal technique against north African synth lines and skittering electronic percussion. The album's sound is lean and subtle, yet this simplicity offers the ideal environment for Hamdan's emotive lyricism to take center stage. This is a record well worth the wait.
Number Eight: Debit – Slowed Down
Mexican producer Debit specializes in uncanny reimaginings of archival audio. For her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby take of the shuffling Latin American musical style. Debit slows this sound down to a crawl, filtering its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm through layers of murk and hiss to produce a new, foreboding rhythm. Periodically atmospheric and uneasy, Debit converts the joyous dancefloor sound of cumbia into a enduring, ghostly memory.
7. DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sensory overload is the operative word for the output of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a cacophony of sirens, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the classic Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This recreates the energetic sound of urban celebrations. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the intensity, incorporating everything from techno kick drums to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a especially manic and overwhelmingly noisy 40-minute sonic journey. Give in to the assault and Vieira's brash productions become oddly freeing.
6. The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a newly appreciated gem. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an unusually engaging combination of the sharp sound of electronic keyboards and programmed drums with her melismatic Indian classical singing style. Electronic percussion mirrors 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. Elsewhere, Latin-inflected grooves takes center stage on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a fast-paced walking disco bassline. It's a club-ready hybrid pioneered more than ten years before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
5. The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor
From Mongolia vocalist Enji's delicate new release, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-influenced sound to present some of her most diverse music to date. Departing from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks veer from the soft jazz-pop melodics 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 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a ensemble rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay intimate, pulling the listener into the tender soundscape of her distinctive voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow
Drawing on the psychedelic tradition of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's new album with her band Grup Şimşek merges the electric jangle of the amplified traditional lute with drifting Mellotron and soulful tunes. It's a retro-70s aesthetic rooted in Yıldırım's commanding high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. Yet, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group reaches dynamic new territory. They develop sinuous, slow-burning grooves and lifting vocals that impart a new, quirky interpretation to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
Number Three: Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Sacred music, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements converge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary fourth album. Arranging music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett explore everything from the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic reggaeton-inspired beats of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim
