Our Ten Most Outstanding Global Records of 2025
Looking back on the musical landscape of global sounds that pushed boundaries. Here is a countdown of ten exceptional albums that defined the year in music.
10. The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of repetitive drumming could sound like it isn't the most approachable listening experience. However, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar converts this persistent pulse into a unexpectedly magnetic piece. Directing an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar develops a intricate percussive language across the record's ten parts. The work references the phasing techniques of Steve Reich alongside classical Indian rhythmic patterns, everything tethered in the recurrence of a persistent, pulsing figure. As the album progresses, this refrain begins to emulate the ceremonial rhythm of ceremonial music, luring the listener deeper into Korwar's singular percussive universe.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
Following an long absence, Arab singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan returns with a mournful set of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-sung, dub-influenced style that established her as a fixture in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is gentle and thoughtful, singing tender melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop beat of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a wavering, longing vibrato against Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and clattering electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is minimal and subtle, yet this minimalism creates the ideal setting for Hamdan's expressive songwriting to resonate. This is a record well worth the wait.
Number Eight: Debit – Desaceleradas
Mexican electronic artist Debit excels at uncanny reimaginings of historical sounds. For her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dubby interpretation of the shuffling Latin American dance genre. Debit drags this sound down to a crawl, running its signature synths and syncopated rhythm through layers of murk and static to generate a new, foreboding beat. At turns ambient and unsettling, Debit morphs the celebratory dancefloor sound of cumbia into a persistent, ghostly echo.
Number Seven: DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Maximalism is the defining principle for the music of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a onslaught of sirens, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics on top of the longstanding Brazilian genre of baile funk. This emulates the driving sound of neighborhood block parties. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the ferocity, throwing in everything from techno kick drums to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly hyperactive and deafeningly intense forty-minute listening experience. Give in to the noise and Vieira's unapologetic productions become strangely freeing.
6. The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a newly appreciated treasure. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an unusually engaging combination of the metallic sound of electronic keyboards and drum machines with her ornate Indian classical singing style. Drum machine patterns mirrors the wavelike tones of the tabla, while synth lines replicates the traditional sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. At other times, bossa nova rhythm takes center stage on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya boasts a fast-paced funky bass rhythm. It's a dancefloor fusion pioneered over a decade before the rise of Asian Underground music.
5. The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance
From Mongolia vocalist Enji's delicate latest record, Sonor, develops her jazz-inflected sound to offer some of her most diverse music yet. Moving away from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks travel from the soft jazz-pop melodies of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German-language narration 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 full backing band rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay intimate, pulling the listener into the gentle acoustics of her singular voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – Yarın Yoksa
Channeling the 60s heritage of Turkish psychedelia established by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's third record with her band Grup Şimşek fuses the metallic twang of the amplified traditional lute with dreamy Mellotron and classic soul melodies. It's a nostalgic vibe anchored in Yıldırım's powerful falsetto and shaped by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated sound. However, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group finds dynamic new territory. They craft smooth, downtempo grooves and soaring vocals that give a new, quirky spin to the Turkish psych sound.
Number Three: Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Sacred music, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings all come together on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable latest work. Orchestrating 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 brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim
