This Ten Greatest Global Albums of 2025
The past twelve months have offered a rich tapestry of worldwide music that pushed boundaries. We explore ten notable albums that defined the year in music.
Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
A continuous, 40-minute suite of repetitive drumming could sound like it isn't the easiest listening experience. However, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar transforms this persistent pulse into a unexpectedly magnetic album. Guiding an group of three drummers, Korwar crafts a complex percussive dialect throughout the record's ten parts. His composition channels minimalist concepts from Steve Reich as well as traditional Indian musical phrasing, each grounded in the recurrence of a continual, driving refrain. The longer one listens, this refrain starts to mirror the ceremonial rhythm of ritual music, drawing the listener further into Korwar's unique percussive universe.
9. The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
Following an long absence, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a melancholy set of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-sung, dub-tinged sound that cemented her status in the region's indie music scene since the nineties. Hamdan's vocal delivery is quiet and ruminative, delivering soft melodies over 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 uses a quivering, longing vibrato over electronic lines with North African flavors and rattling electronic percussion. The album's sound is sparse and restrained, yet this austerity provides the ideal canvas for Hamdan's expressive songwriting to shine through. It is that justifies the wait.
8. Debit – Slowed Down
Mexican electronic artist Debit has a knack for haunting reworkings of traditional music. On her new album, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dubby version of the shuffling Latin American musical style. Debit decelerates this sound down to a crawl, running its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm via veils of murk and static to generate a new, foreboding groove. At turns atmospheric and unsettling, Debit morphs the celebratory dancefloor sound of cumbia into a persistent, ghostly afterimage.
Number Seven: The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Maximalism is the key term for the music of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a onslaught of alarms, explosive bass tones and shouted lyrics over the longstanding Brazilian genre of baile funk. This emulates the energetic sound of neighborhood block parties. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the energy, adding 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 manic and overwhelmingly noisy 40-minute listening experience. Give in to the noise and Vieira's bold productions become unexpectedly exhilarating.
6. Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco beats and Punjabi folk melodies is a rediscovered masterpiece. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an remarkably captivating blend of the metallic sound of early synthesizers and drum machines with her fluid Indian classical singing style. Electronic percussion mimics the wavelike tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody replicates the traditional 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 driving disco bass groove. It's a party blend created more than ten years before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
5. Enji – Sonor
Mongolian vocalist Enji's gentle fourth album, Sonor, develops her jazz-inflected sound to offer some of her most wide-ranging music so far. Stepping outside her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs range 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 lively, funk-inflected cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a full backing band rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains personal, drawing the listener into the warm acoustics of her distinctive voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa
Inspired by the 1960s legacy of Anatolian rock established by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work with her band Grup Şimşek fuses the distinctive buzz of the electrified saz with woozy Mellotron and R&B-inflected lines. It's a 1970s throwback sound grounded in Yıldırım's powerful falsetto and influenced by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated sound. But, on Turkish standards such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group reaches lively new territory. They craft slinking, downtempo grooves and lifting vocals that give a novel, off-kilter spin to the Turkish psych sound.
3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Gregorian chants, Czech harpsichord folksong and orchestral strings converge on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable fourth album. Arranging music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through everything from the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated reggaeton-inspired beats of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim
