Our 10 Best Global Albums of 2025
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the international music that pushed boundaries. Here is a countdown of ten remarkable albums that defined the year in music.
Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
A continuous, 40-minute suite of insistent percussion could sound like it isn't the most accessible musical proposition. However, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar converts this insistent rhythm into a strangely alluring piece. Directing an group of three drummers, Korwar develops a intricate percussive dialect throughout the record's ten sections. The album references minimalist concepts from Steve Reich combined with classical Indian rhythmic patterns, each grounded in the reiteration of a persistent, thrumming motif. The longer one listens, this refrain starts to mirror the trance-inducing cycles of ritual music, luring the listener further into Korwar's singular percussive realm.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
After an eight-year break, Lebanese vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a contemplative album of songs. She expands on 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 quiet and introspective, delivering delicate melodies atop the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop groove of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a quivering, yearning vibrato over Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and rattling electronic percussion. The production is sparse and restrained, yet this austerity offers the perfect canvas for Hamdan's expressive songwriting to resonate. This is a record that justifies the wait.
Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down
Mexican producer Debit specializes in eerie reinterpretations of historical sounds. On her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected version of the rhythmic Latin American dance genre. Debit drags this sound to a near-halt, filtering its signature synths and syncopated rhythm through veils of sludge and static to generate a new, sinister rhythm. At turns ambient and discomfiting, Debit converts the joyous party music of cumbia into a lasting, spectral memory.
7. The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sheer intensity is the defining principle for the records of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, who performs 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 enduring Brazilian genre of baile funk. This emulates the propulsive sound of favela street parties. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the energy, adding everything from driving techno rhythms to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly frenetic and overwhelmingly noisy forty-minute sonic journey. Submit to the cacophony and Vieira's bold productions become strangely freeing.
Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco music and Punjabi folk melodies is a reissued masterpiece. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an unusually captivating fusion of the synthetic sound of electronic keyboards and drum machines with her fluid classical Indian singing style. Electronic percussion mimics the rolling tones of the traditional drums, while synth lines parallels the classic sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, bossa nova rhythm takes center stage on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a fast-paced funky bass rhythm. It's a dancefloor fusion created more than ten years before the rise of Asian Underground music.
5. The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance
From Mongolia singer Enji's delicate fourth album, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-inflected sound to present some of her most diverse music so far. Departing from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces travel from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodics of downtempo number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-inflected cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a full backing band rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay close, pulling the listener into the tender soundscape of her distinctive voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa
Inspired by the psychedelic tradition of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work with her band Grup Şimşek blends the metallic twang of the amplified traditional lute with woozy Mellotron and classic soul melodies. It's a retro-70s aesthetic rooted in Yıldırım's strong high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape aesthetic. However, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group ventures into vibrant new territory. They develop slinking, downtempo grooves and lifting vocals that lend a novel, quirky twist to the Turkish psych sound.
3. Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Gregorian chants, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements merge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable fourth album. Orchestrating music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through 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. Yet, it is Pim
