Our Ten Most Outstanding Worldwide Records of the Year 2025
The past twelve months have offered a rich tapestry of international music that expanded horizons. Presenting a selection of ten notable albums that characterized the year in music.
10. The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on insistent percussion might not seem the most accessible musical proposition. However, Indian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar turns this driving beat into a unexpectedly magnetic album. Leading an trio of three drummers, Korwar creates a complex percussive language over the record's ten parts. The album draws from the phasing techniques of Steve Reich as well as classical Indian rhythmic patterns, everything tethered in the reiteration of a continual, thrumming figure. The longer one listens, this refrain evokes the trance-inducing cycles of ceremonial music, pulling the listener deeper into Korwar's singular percussive realm.
9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
After an long absence, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a mournful album of songs. It continues exploring 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 soft and introspective, delivering soft melodies atop the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop groove of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a wavering, yearning vibrato over electronic lines with North African flavors and clattering electronic percussion. The production is minimal and understated, yet this simplicity provides the perfect environment for Hamdan's deeply felt lyricism to resonate. It is well worth the wait.
Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico electronic artist Debit has a knack for haunting reworkings of historical sounds. For her new album, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected take of the shuffling Latin American dance genre. Debit decelerates this sound to a near-halt, running its signature synths and off-beat rhythm via sheets of distortion and static to generate a new, sinister rhythm. Sometimes ambient and unsettling, Debit converts the celebratory dancefloor sound of cumbia into a enduring, ghostly echo.
7. The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sheer intensity is the defining principle for the output of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a cacophony of alarms, explosive bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the enduring Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This captures the energetic sound of favela street parties. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the ferocity, adding everything from driving techno rhythms to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly frenetic and overwhelmingly noisy forty-minute listening experience. Give in to the noise and Vieira's bold productions become oddly liberating.
6. The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco music and Punjabi folk melodies is a newly appreciated gem. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an remarkably engaging fusion of the synthetic sound of electronic keyboards and drum machines with her fluid Indian classical vocal technique. Drum machine patterns echoes the wavelike tones of the traditional drums, while synth lines doubles the traditional sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, Latin-inflected grooves is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a driving walking disco bassline. It's a party blend delivered more than ten years before the rise of Asian Underground music.
5. Enji – Sonor
Mongolian vocalist Enji's gentle new release, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-influenced sound to present some of her most wide-ranging music yet. Stepping outside her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces veer from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodies 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 live band rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay intimate, drawing the listener into the gentle soundscape of her distinctive voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – Yarın Yoksa
Inspired by the psychedelic tradition of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work with her band Grup Şimşek fuses the distinctive buzz of the amplified traditional lute with dreamy keyboard and soulful tunes. It's a retro-70s aesthetic anchored in Yıldırım's strong high register and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. Yet, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group reaches lively new territory. They create sinuous, slow-burning grooves and powerful vocals that impart a new, off-kilter spin to the Turkish psych sound.
3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Catholic requiem mass music, Czech harpsichord folksong and orchestral strings merge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable fourth album. Arranging music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett traverse 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 syncopated dembow rhythms of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim
