The Ten Best Global Records of the Year 2025
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the worldwide releases that pushed boundaries. We explore ten notable albums that characterized the year in music.
10. Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on cyclical percussion may not appear the easiest musical proposition. But, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar turns this persistent pulse into a hypnotically captivating work. Directing an group of three drummers, Korwar creates a dense percussive dialect across the record's ten parts. The album draws from the phasing techniques of Steve Reich alongside traditional Indian musical phrasing, each grounded in the reiteration of a persistent, pulsing motif. As the album progresses, this refrain begins to emulate the hypnotic repetition of devotional music, luring the listener further into Korwar's unique percussive realm.
9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Coming off an hiatus of eight years, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a contemplative set of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-language, dub-influenced sound that cemented her status in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is quiet and introspective, delivering tender melodies over the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop beat of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a quivering, yearning vocal technique over electronic lines with North African flavors and skittering electronic percussion. The album's sound is lean and subtle, yet this austerity offers the perfect environment for Hamdan's expressive compositions to take center stage. The album proves to be truly deserving of the wait.
8. The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico electronic artist Debit specializes in uncanny reworkings of traditional music. For her new album, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dubby version of the shuffling Latin American dance genre. Debit decelerates this sound down to a crawl, running its signature synths and syncopated rhythm through sheets of murk and noise to create a novel, sinister rhythm. Sometimes atmospheric and discomfiting, Debit converts the joyous dancefloor sound of cumbia into a lasting, spectral afterimage.
Number Seven: The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Maximalism is the operative word for the output of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira piles a onslaught of sirens, explosive bass tones and shouted lyrics over the longstanding Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This recreates the energetic sound of favela street parties. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the ferocity, incorporating everything from techno kick drums to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a notably hyperactive and overwhelmingly noisy forty-minute sonic journey. Give in to the noise and Vieira's brash productions become strangely liberating.
Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco beats and Punjabi folk melodies is a newly appreciated treasure. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an strikingly compelling fusion of the synthetic sound of early synthesizers and drum machines with her melismatic classical Indian singing style. Drum machine patterns mirrors the rolling tones of the traditional drums, while synth lines doubles the classic sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. At other times, Latin-inflected grooves is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a up-tempo disco bass groove. It's a party blend created over a decade before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance
Mongolian singer Enji's soft new release, Sonor, develops her jazz-inflected sound to offer some of her most diverse music to date. Stepping outside her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces travel from the soft jazz-pop melodics of downtempo number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-inflected cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a full backing band rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay intimate, pulling the listener into the warm acoustics of her unique voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – Yarın Yoksa
Inspired by the 60s heritage of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work alongside her group fuses the electric jangle of the amplified traditional lute with dreamy Mellotron and classic soul melodies. It's a nostalgic vibe rooted in Yıldırım's commanding falsetto and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. But, on Turkish standards such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group ventures into lively new territory. They craft sinuous, slow-burning grooves and soaring vocals that lend a new, off-kilter spin to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
Number Three: Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Sacred music, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements converge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's stunning latest work. Orchestrating music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett traverse everything from the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic dembow rhythms of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim
