This Ten Best Global Albums of 2025
The past twelve months have offered a rich tapestry of worldwide music that defied expectations. Presenting a selection of ten exceptional albums that shaped the year in music.
Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of cyclical percussion might not seem the easiest listening experience. But, Indian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar converts this driving beat into a unexpectedly magnetic piece. Directing an trio of three drummers, Korwar crafts a complex percussive vocabulary across the record's ten sections. The album references Steve Reich's phasing motifs combined with Indian classical phrasing, all anchored in the repetition of a ongoing, thrumming refrain. The longer one listens, this refrain starts to mirror the ceremonial rhythm of ritual music, drawing the listener further into Korwar's singular percussive universe.
Number Nine: The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
After an hiatus of eight years, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a contemplative collection of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-language, dub-influenced sound that made her a staple in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is gentle and thoughtful, singing tender melodies atop the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rolling trip-hop groove of Vows. During more energetic moments such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a trembling, longing vocal technique over Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and clattering electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is sparse and subtle, yet this austerity provides the ideal canvas for Hamdan's deeply felt lyricism to take center stage. The album proves to be well worth the long anticipation.
Number Eight: Debit – Slowed Down
Mexican producer Debit has a knack for uncanny reimaginings of traditional music. On her latest release, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected version of the shuffling Latin American musical style. Debit slows this sound even further, processing its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm through layers of distortion and hiss to create a new, menacing beat. At turns atmospheric and discomfiting, Debit morphs the joyous party music of cumbia into a enduring, ghostly afterimage.
7. DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Maximalism is the defining principle for the records of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira piles a tumult of sirens, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics on top of the classic Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This recreates the energetic sound of neighborhood block parties. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the ferocity, incorporating everything from four-on-the-floor techno beats to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly hyperactive and overwhelmingly noisy forty-minute listening experience. Give in to the noise and Vieira's unapologetic productions become strangely exhilarating.
Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco beats and Punjabi folk melodies is a reissued gem. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an strikingly engaging fusion of the sharp sound of electronic keyboards and drum machines with her ornate Indian classical singing style. Electronic percussion mimics the undulating tones of the traditional drums, while synth lines parallels the classic sound of the reed organ 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 fast-paced disco bass groove. It's a club-ready hybrid delivered more than ten years before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
Number Five: Enji – Resonance
Mongolian vocalist Enji's soft latest record, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-influenced sound to offer some of her broadest music so far. Departing from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs veer from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodies of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-tinged cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a live band rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains personal, pulling the listener into the warm soundscape of her unique voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa
Inspired by the psychedelic tradition of Turkish psychedelia established by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's new album alongside her group blends the electric jangle of the electrified saz with drifting Mellotron and soulful tunes. It's a nostalgic vibe grounded in Yıldırım's powerful falsetto and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape aesthetic. However, on Turkish standards such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group finds vibrant new territory. They develop smooth, slow-burning grooves and powerful vocals that lend a novel, quirky spin to the Turkish psych sound.
Number Three: Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Sacred music, Czech harpsichord folksong and orchestral strings all come together on Colombian 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 theatrical counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated reggaeton-inspired beats of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim
