This 10 Top Global Records of the Year 2025
The past twelve months have offered a rich tapestry of worldwide sounds that defied expectations. Presenting a selection of ten notable albums that defined the year in music.
10. The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
A continuous, 40-minute suite of insistent drumming may not appear the easiest musical proposition. However, Indian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar turns this driving beat into a unexpectedly magnetic work. Guiding an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar develops a dense percussive dialect throughout the record's ten sections. His composition draws from minimalist concepts from Steve Reich combined with classical Indian rhythmic patterns, all anchored in the repetition of a ongoing, pulsing refrain. As the album progresses, this refrain starts to mirror the trance-inducing cycles of devotional music, luring the listener deeper into Korwar's singular percussive world.
9. The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
Coming off an hiatus of eight years, Lebanese vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan returns with a melancholy collection of songs. She expands on the Arabic-language, dub-influenced sound that established her as a fixture in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the nineties. Hamdan's voice is soft and ruminative, delivering soft 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 uses a wavering, longing vocal technique over Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and skittering electronic percussion. The production is minimal and subtle, yet this minimalism provides the ideal setting for Hamdan's deeply felt songwriting to resonate. The album proves to be truly deserving of the long anticipation.
8. Debit – Desaceleradas
Mexican producer Debit excels at uncanny reinterpretations of archival audio. For her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dubby interpretation of the rhythmic Latin American musical style. Debit drags this sound to a near-halt, filtering its signature synths and syncopated rhythm via layers of murk and noise to produce a novel, foreboding beat. Periodically ambient and unsettling, Debit transforms the exuberant party music of cumbia into a persistent, spectral echo.
7. The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sheer intensity is the defining principle for the music of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a cacophony of alarms, explosive bass tones and shouted lyrics over the classic Brazilian genre of baile funk. This recreates the propulsive sound of urban celebrations. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the intensity, 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 frenetic and deafeningly intense forty-minute listening experience. Give in to the assault and Vieira's bold productions become oddly liberating.
Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco beats and traditional Punjabi tunes is a reissued masterpiece. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an remarkably compelling fusion of the sharp sound of 1980s synthesisers and drum machines with her ornate classical Indian vocal technique. Drum machine patterns echoes the rolling tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody parallels the classic sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. At other times, Latin-inflected grooves comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya boasts a fast-paced funky bass rhythm. It's a party blend delivered more than ten years before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
5. Enji – Sonor
Mongolian vocalist Enji's gentle latest record, Sonor, develops her jazz-influenced sound to present some of her broadest music to date. Moving away from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces travel from the gentle jazz-pop melodies of downtempo number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a sprightly, funk-tinged cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a full backing band rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still close, pulling the listener into the warm acoustics of her distinctive voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – Yarın Yoksa
Drawing on the 60s heritage of Anatolian rock pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work alongside her group blends the electric jangle of the electrified saz with woozy Mellotron and R&B-inflected lines. It's a retro-70s aesthetic grounded in Yıldırım's commanding high register and influenced by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated aesthetic. Yet, on Turkish standards such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group ventures into dynamic new territory. They develop slinking, slow-burning grooves and soaring vocals that lend a new, quirky spin to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
3. Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Sacred music, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings merge on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable latest work. Arranging music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett explore a vast range including the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic dembow rhythms of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim