This Ten Best Global Records of the Year 2025
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the global music that expanded horizons. Presenting a selection of ten exceptional albums that defined the year in music.
10. The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
A continuous, 40-minute suite of insistent percussion may not appear the most approachable musical proposition. But, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar turns this persistent pulse into a unexpectedly magnetic piece. Directing an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar crafts a dense percussive dialect over the record's ten sections. The album channels the phasing techniques of Steve Reich alongside traditional Indian musical phrasing, each grounded in the repetition of a continual, driving refrain. The longer one listens, this refrain starts to mirror the ceremonial rhythm of ceremonial music, pulling the listener deeper into Korwar's singular percussive universe.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Coming off an eight-year break, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a melancholy collection of songs. She expands on the Arabic-language, dub-influenced style that cemented her status in the region's indie music scene since the nineties. Hamdan's vocal delivery is gentle and thoughtful, delivering tender melodies atop the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop beat of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a trembling, longing vibrato over north African synth lines and rattling electronic percussion. The production is sparse and understated, yet this minimalism provides the ideal setting for Hamdan's emotive lyricism to take center stage. This is a record well worth the wait.
8. The Mexican Producer Debit – Desaceleradas
From Mexico electronic artist Debit has a knack for uncanny reworkings of traditional music. For her new album, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dub-inflected version of the shuffling Latin American dance music genre. Debit slows this sound to a near-halt, processing its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm through sheets of sludge and static to produce a fresh, foreboding groove. Sometimes ambient and discomfiting, Debit transforms the exuberant party music of cumbia into a lasting, ethereal echo.
Number Seven: The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Maximalism is the defining principle for the records of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira piles a cacophony of sirens, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the longstanding Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This emulates the propulsive sound of urban celebrations. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the intensity, adding everything from driving techno rhythms to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a especially hyperactive and punishingly loud forty-minute listening experience. Submit to the assault and Vieira's bold productions become strangely liberating.
6. Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco beats and traditional Punjabi tunes is a rediscovered treasure. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an remarkably captivating fusion of the metallic sound of 1980s synthesisers and drum machines with her fluid classical Indian singing style. Drum machine patterns echoes the undulating tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody replicates the classic sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. At other times, 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 delivered more than ten years before the Asian Underground explosion.
5. The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance
Mongolian vocalist Enji's soft fourth album, Sonor, expands on her jazz-influenced sound to deliver some of her most wide-ranging music so far. Departing from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces range from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodies of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a energetic, funk-inflected cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Showcasing a live band rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still personal, drawing the listener into the warm acoustics of her unique voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow
Drawing on the psychedelic tradition of Turkish psychedelia established by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's third record alongside her group blends the metallic twang of the electrified saz with drifting keyboard and soulful tunes. It's a retro-70s aesthetic grounded in Yıldırım's strong high register and influenced by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated aesthetic. But, on classic Turkish songs such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group finds dynamic new territory. They craft smooth, downtempo grooves and powerful vocals that impart a novel, unconventional twist to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Catholic requiem mass music, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements converge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable fourth album. Arranging music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett traverse a vast range including the Gregorian chants 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. Ultimately, it is Pim
