Our Ten Most Outstanding Global Albums of the Year 2025
Looking back on the musical landscape of global music that defied expectations. Presenting a selection of ten exceptional albums that defined the year in music.
Number Ten: The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
A continuous, 40-minute suite of repetitive percussion may not appear the most accessible musical proposition. But, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar transforms this persistent pulse into a unexpectedly magnetic album. Directing an trio of three drummers, Korwar creates a intricate percussive dialect across the record's 10 movements. The album references minimalist concepts from Steve Reich combined with Indian classical phrasing, each grounded in the repetition of a ongoing, thrumming motif. As the album progresses, this refrain starts to mirror the ceremonial rhythm of ritual music, luring the listener further into Korwar's distinctive percussive realm.
Number Nine: The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
After an eight-year break, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan returns with a contemplative set of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-language, dub-influenced style that cemented her status in the Arab alternative scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is gentle and introspective, delivering delicate melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop groove of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a wavering, longing vibrato against Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and rattling electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is lean and subtle, yet this simplicity offers the perfect setting for Hamdan's deeply felt songwriting to take center stage. This is a record truly deserving of the wait.
8. Debit – Desaceleradas
Mexican electronic artist Debit has a knack for haunting reimaginings of historical sounds. On her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected take of the shuffling Latin American dance music genre. Debit drags this sound to a near-halt, running its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm via layers of distortion and hiss to create a novel, sinister rhythm. At turns atmospheric and unsettling, Debit converts the joyous dancefloor sound of cumbia into a enduring, spectral memory.
7. DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sheer intensity is the key term for the music of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a tumult of alarms, explosive bass tones and shouted lyrics over the enduring Brazilian genre of baile funk. This recreates the driving sound of favela street parties. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the ferocity, throwing in everything from four-on-the-floor techno beats to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a notably hyperactive and overwhelmingly noisy forty-minute sonic journey. Surrender to the noise and Vieira's brash productions become oddly freeing.
6. The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release of disco music and Punjabi folk melodies is a reissued masterpiece. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an strikingly compelling combination of the synthetic sound of 1980s synthesisers and drum machines with her ornate Indian classical singing style. Electronic percussion mimics the wavelike tones of the traditional drums, while synth lines parallels the classic sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, bossa nova rhythm is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a fast-paced disco bass groove. It's a club-ready hybrid created over a decade before the Asian Underground explosion.
Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance
Mongolian singer Enji's gentle fourth album, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-inflected sound to present some of her most wide-ranging music so far. Stepping outside her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks range from the gentle jazz-pop melodics of downtempo 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 typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains personal, pulling the listener into the gentle acoustics of her distinctive voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow
Drawing on the psychedelic tradition of Anatolian rock pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's new album alongside her group fuses the metallic twang of the amplified traditional lute with drifting Mellotron and R&B-inflected lines. It's a 1970s throwback sound grounded in Yıldırım's powerful high register and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. But, on classic Turkish songs such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group ventures into vibrant new territory. They develop slinking, slow-burning grooves and soaring vocals that impart a fresh, off-kilter spin to the Turkish psych sound.
3. The Colombian Artist 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 journey through a vast range including the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated reggaeton-inspired beats of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim
