This Ten Top Worldwide Albums of the Year 2025
Looking back on the musical landscape of international releases that pushed boundaries. Presenting a selection of ten exceptional albums that shaped the year in music.
Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
A continuous, 40-minute suite of cyclical drumming might not seem the most approachable musical proposition. Yet, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar transforms this insistent rhythm into a strangely alluring piece. Guiding an trio of three drummers, Korwar develops a complex percussive dialect throughout the record's 10 movements. The album references the phasing techniques of Steve Reich as well as classical Indian rhythmic patterns, each grounded in the reiteration of a continual, pulsing figure. Over its duration, this refrain starts to mirror the hypnotic repetition of ceremonial music, drawing the listener further into Korwar's singular percussive universe.
9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Following an long absence, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a contemplative collection of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-language, dub-influenced style that cemented her status in the region's indie music scene since the nineties. Hamdan's voice is gentle and thoughtful, delivering tender melodies over the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop beat of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a trembling, longing vibrato over north African synth lines and rattling electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is sparse and restrained, yet this austerity offers the perfect canvas for Hamdan's expressive lyricism to resonate. It is that justifies the long anticipation.
Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico producer Debit specializes in haunting reinterpretations of historical sounds. For her latest release, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected take of the rhythmic Latin American dance music genre. Debit drags this sound even further, filtering its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm through sheets of distortion and static to generate a new, sinister groove. Sometimes ambient and unsettling, Debit transforms the celebratory dancefloor sound of cumbia into a lasting, ethereal afterimage.
7. DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sheer intensity is the key term for the output of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira piles a tumult of alarms, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the longstanding Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This emulates the driving sound of urban celebrations. 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 frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly hyperactive and deafeningly intense 40-minute listening experience. Give in to the cacophony and Vieira's unapologetic productions become strangely exhilarating.
Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco music and Punjabi folk melodies is a reissued treasure. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an unusually captivating fusion of the sharp sound of 1980s synthesisers and drum machines with her fluid Indian classical singing style. Electronic percussion mimics the undulating tones of the traditional drums, while synth lines parallels the classic 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 boasts a up-tempo disco bass groove. It's a dancefloor fusion delivered over a decade before the rise of Asian Underground music.
5. Enji – Sonor
Mongolian singer Enji's delicate new release, Sonor, develops her jazz-influenced sound to present some of her broadest music to date. Moving away from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks travel from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodics of downtempo number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and twanging 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 usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay intimate, inviting the listener into the warm acoustics of her unique voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa
Drawing on the 1960s legacy of Anatolian rock established by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's third record alongside her group fuses the metallic twang of the electrified saz with woozy keyboard and classic soul melodies. It's a nostalgic vibe rooted in Yıldırım's commanding falsetto and shaped by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated aesthetic. However, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group finds dynamic new territory. They create slinking, downtempo grooves and powerful vocals that impart a novel, off-kilter interpretation to the Turkish psych sound.
3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Gregorian chants, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings converge on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's stunning latest work. Arranging music for the sixty-member 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 dramatic interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated reggaeton-inspired beats of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim
