Our Ten Best Worldwide Albums of 2025
The past twelve months have offered a rich tapestry of worldwide sounds that pushed boundaries. Here is a countdown of ten exceptional albums that defined the year in music.
Number Ten: The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
A continuous, 40-minute suite of cyclical drumming could sound like it isn't the easiest listening experience. But, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar turns this driving beat into a hypnotically captivating album. Leading an trio of three drummers, Korwar creates a dense percussive dialect throughout the record's 10 movements. His composition channels the phasing techniques of Steve Reich alongside Indian classical phrasing, each grounded in the recurrence of a persistent, thrumming refrain. The longer one listens, this refrain evokes the trance-inducing cycles of ceremonial music, pulling the listener deeper into Korwar's distinctive percussive realm.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Following an long absence, Arab singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan returns with a melancholy album of songs. She expands on the Arabic-sung, dub-influenced style that cemented her status in the Arab alternative scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is gentle and ruminative, delivering tender melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop beat of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a quivering, longing vibrato over north African synth lines and rattling electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is lean and understated, yet this austerity offers the perfect setting for Hamdan's deeply felt songwriting to resonate. It is well worth the wait.
8. The Mexican Producer Debit – Desaceleradas
Mexican electronic artist Debit has a knack for uncanny reimaginings of traditional music. For her latest release, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby interpretation of the rhythmic Latin American musical style. Debit slows this sound even further, processing its signature synths and syncopated rhythm via sheets of murk and noise to produce a novel, foreboding beat. Sometimes ambient and discomfiting, Debit converts the exuberant dancefloor sound of cumbia into a enduring, ethereal afterimage.
7. The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sheer intensity is the defining principle for the output of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a cacophony of sirens, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics over the classic Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This emulates the propulsive sound of urban celebrations. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the ferocity, incorporating everything from techno kick drums 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 cacophony and Vieira's brash productions become oddly liberating.
6. Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release of disco beats and Punjabi folk melodies is a newly appreciated masterpiece. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an remarkably engaging fusion of the sharp sound of 1980s synthesisers and programmed drums with her ornate classical Indian singing style. Drum machine patterns echoes the wavelike tones of the tabla, while synth lines parallels the classic sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Elsewhere, bossa nova rhythm is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a up-tempo disco bass groove. It's a party blend created more than ten years before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
Number Five: Enji – Resonance
From Mongolia vocalist Enji's gentle latest record, Sonor, develops her jazz-influenced sound to deliver some of her most diverse music so far. Stepping outside her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks travel from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodies of downtempo number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a sprightly, funk-tinged cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Showcasing a full backing band rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains close, drawing the listener into the gentle soundscape of her unique voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow
Inspired by the psychedelic tradition of Anatolian rock pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's new album alongside her group merges the electric jangle of the electrified saz with dreamy keyboard and soulful tunes. It's a retro-70s aesthetic grounded in Yıldırım's commanding falsetto and influenced by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated sound. But, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group finds lively new territory. They create smooth, slow-burning grooves and lifting vocals that impart a novel, off-kilter interpretation to the Turkish psych sound.
3. Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Gregorian chants, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings 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 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 syncopated reggaeton-inspired beats of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim
