The 10 Greatest Worldwide Albums of 2025
Looking back on the musical landscape of global releases that defied expectations. We explore ten notable albums that defined the year in music.
10. Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of insistent percussion may not appear the most approachable listening experience. But, Indian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar transforms this driving beat into a unexpectedly magnetic work. Directing an trio of three drummers, Korwar develops a intricate percussive dialect across the record's 10 movements. The album draws from minimalist concepts from Steve Reich combined with traditional Indian musical phrasing, each grounded in the reiteration of a continual, pulsing motif. Over its duration, this refrain evokes the trance-inducing cycles of ritual music, pulling the listener further into Korwar's singular percussive world.
Number Nine: The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Following an eight-year break, Lebanese vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a contemplative set of songs. She expands on the Arabic-sung, dub-tinged style that made her a staple in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is gentle and ruminative, singing soft melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rolling trip-hop groove of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a wavering, yearning vocal technique over Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and skittering electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is sparse and understated, yet this minimalism provides the ideal setting for Hamdan's emotive compositions to take center stage. This is a record well worth the wait.
Number Eight: Debit – Desaceleradas
Mexican producer Debit has a knack for eerie reinterpretations of historical sounds. On her new album, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected interpretation of the shuffling Latin American dance genre. Debit decelerates this sound down to a crawl, filtering its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm via veils of sludge and noise to produce a fresh, menacing beat. Sometimes ambient and discomfiting, Debit transforms the celebratory party music of cumbia into a enduring, spectral afterimage.
7. The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sheer intensity is the key term for the music of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a cacophony of sirens, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the classic Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This captures the propulsive sound of urban celebrations. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the intensity, adding everything from driving techno rhythms to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly manic and punishingly loud 40-minute sonic journey. Submit to the noise and Vieira's brash productions become oddly exhilarating.
Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a newly appreciated gem. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an strikingly engaging fusion of the metallic sound of early synthesizers and drum machines with her melismatic Indian classical vocal technique. Electronic percussion mimics 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 is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya boasts a fast-paced disco bass groove. It's a club-ready hybrid created over a decade before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
5. Enji – Resonance
Mongolian singer Enji's delicate latest record, Sonor, expands on her jazz-influenced sound to deliver some of her most diverse music so far. Moving away from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces travel from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodics of slow-burning 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 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a full backing band rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains intimate, drawing the listener into the warm acoustics of her unique voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow
Drawing on the psychedelic tradition of Turkish psychedelia established by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work alongside her group blends the electric jangle of the amplified traditional lute with drifting keyboard and soulful tunes. It's a nostalgic vibe anchored in Yıldırım's commanding high register and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape aesthetic. Yet, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group ventures into dynamic new territory. They develop sinuous, downtempo grooves and soaring vocals that impart a new, off-kilter twist to the Turkish psych sound.
Number Three: The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Catholic requiem mass music, Czech harpsichord folksong and orchestral strings all come together on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable fourth album. Orchestrating music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through everything from the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic dembow rhythms of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim
