This Ten Most Outstanding Worldwide Records of 2025
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the global releases that pushed boundaries. Presenting a selection of ten exceptional albums that characterized the year in music.
10. Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of repetitive percussion could sound like it isn't the most approachable musical proposition. Yet, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar converts this persistent pulse into a unexpectedly magnetic piece. Directing an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar develops a intricate percussive dialect over the record's ten sections. The album references Steve Reich's phasing motifs alongside traditional Indian musical phrasing, everything tethered in the reiteration of a continual, thrumming figure. The longer one listens, this refrain evokes the hypnotic repetition of ritual music, luring the listener deeper into Korwar's unique percussive universe.
9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
After an eight-year break, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a contemplative album of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-language, dub-influenced style that established her as a fixture in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is soft and ruminative, delivering tender melodies over the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rolling trip-hop groove of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she adopts a trembling, yearning vocal technique over electronic lines with North African flavors and rattling electronic percussion. The album's sound is lean and restrained, yet this simplicity provides the ideal setting for Hamdan's emotive lyricism to shine through. It is truly deserving of the long anticipation.
Number Eight: Debit – Slowed Down
Mexican electronic artist Debit specializes in haunting reinterpretations of historical sounds. On her new album, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby take of the rhythmic Latin American dance music genre. Debit slows this sound down to a crawl, filtering its signature synths and off-beat rhythm via sheets of sludge and static to produce a novel, sinister rhythm. Periodically ambient and uneasy, Debit converts the celebratory party music of cumbia into a lasting, ethereal afterimage.
Number Seven: DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sensory overload is the operative word for the output of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a cacophony of sirens, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics on top of the enduring Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This captures the energetic sound of neighborhood block parties. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the energy, incorporating everything from four-on-the-floor techno beats to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly frenetic and deafeningly intense forty-minute listening experience. Submit to the assault and Vieira's unapologetic productions become oddly freeing.
Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a reissued gem. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an remarkably compelling blend of the synthetic sound of electronic keyboards and drum machines with her fluid Indian classical singing style. Electronic percussion mimics the undulating tones of the tabla, while synthesiser melody replicates the classic sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Elsewhere, Latin-inflected grooves comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a up-tempo funky bass rhythm. It's a dancefloor fusion created more than ten years before the rise of Asian Underground music.
5. Enji – Resonance
Mongolian vocalist Enji's soft latest record, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-influenced sound to present some of her broadest music so far. Moving away from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks travel from the soft jazz-pop melodics of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-inflected cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a live band rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay personal, inviting the listener into the gentle soundscape of her unique voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – Yarın Yoksa
Inspired by the 60s heritage of Turkish psychedelia established by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work with her band Grup Şimşek merges the metallic twang of the amplified traditional lute with dreamy keyboard and classic soul melodies. It's a nostalgic vibe grounded in Yıldırım's strong high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. Yet, on classic Turkish songs such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group finds lively new territory. They develop sinuous, downtempo grooves and soaring vocals that impart a new, off-kilter spin to the Turkish psych sound.
Number Three: Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Catholic requiem mass music, Eastern European folk melodies and symphonic arrangements merge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable latest work. Arranging 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 theatrical interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated reggaeton-inspired beats of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim
