Our Ten Best Global Records of the Year 2025
The past twelve months have offered a rich tapestry of global releases that pushed boundaries. We explore ten notable albums that characterized the year in music.
10. Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of insistent drumming could sound like it isn't the most accessible listening experience. Yet, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar transforms this persistent pulse into a hypnotically captivating work. Guiding an group of three drummers, Korwar develops a complex percussive dialect over the record's ten sections. The work channels the phasing techniques of Steve Reich alongside traditional Indian musical phrasing, everything tethered in the repetition of a persistent, thrumming refrain. The longer one listens, this refrain begins to emulate the hypnotic repetition of ceremonial music, pulling the listener further into Korwar's distinctive percussive realm.
9. The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
After an long absence, Arab singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a mournful album of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-sung, dub-influenced aesthetic that made her a staple in the Arab alternative scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is quiet and thoughtful, delivering tender melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop beat of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a wavering, longing vibrato over north African synth lines and skittering electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is lean and understated, yet this austerity creates the ideal setting for Hamdan's expressive compositions to resonate. It is that justifies the long anticipation.
8. The Mexican Producer Debit – Desaceleradas
From Mexico producer Debit excels at uncanny reworkings of traditional music. For her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dubby interpretation of the rhythmic Latin American dance genre. Debit decelerates this sound to a near-halt, filtering its signature synths and off-beat rhythm through sheets of distortion and noise to create a new, foreboding rhythm. Periodically ambient and discomfiting, Debit transforms the exuberant dancefloor sound of cumbia into a persistent, spectral memory.
Number Seven: The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sensory overload is the operative word for the records of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a cacophony of sirens, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics on top of the classic Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This emulates the energetic sound of neighborhood block parties. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the energy, adding everything from driving techno rhythms to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a notably hyperactive and punishingly loud 40-minute listening experience. Submit to the assault and Vieira's bold productions become strangely liberating.
Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco beats and Punjabi folk melodies is a newly appreciated gem. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an remarkably captivating fusion of the sharp sound of 1980s synthesisers and programmed drums with her melismatic classical Indian vocal technique. Drum machine patterns mirrors the undulating tones of the tabla, while synth lines replicates the traditional sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, Latin-inflected grooves comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a fast-paced disco bass groove. It's a dancefloor fusion created more than ten years before the Asian Underground explosion.
Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor
From Mongolia vocalist Enji's delicate latest record, Sonor, develops her jazz-inflected sound to deliver some of her most diverse music so far. Stepping outside her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces travel from the soft 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 lively, funk-tinged cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a full backing band rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay intimate, pulling the listener into the gentle acoustics of her singular voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow
Drawing on the 60s heritage of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's new album alongside her group merges the electric jangle of the amplified traditional lute with woozy keyboard and R&B-inflected lines. It's a nostalgic vibe rooted in Yıldırım's commanding high register and influenced by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated sound. However, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group finds lively new territory. They create smooth, slow-burning grooves and soaring vocals that lend a fresh, off-kilter interpretation to the Turkish psych sound.
Number Three: Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Catholic requiem mass music, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements merge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary 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 interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic reggaeton-inspired beats of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim
