Our 10 Top Worldwide Albums of 2025
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the worldwide sounds that defied expectations. We explore ten remarkable albums that characterized the year in music.
Number Ten: The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of insistent drumming could sound like it isn't the most accessible listening experience. However, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar converts this persistent pulse into a strangely alluring work. Directing an trio of three drummers, Korwar crafts a complex percussive language throughout the record's ten sections. The work references the phasing techniques of Steve Reich combined with Indian classical phrasing, everything tethered in the repetition of a continual, driving refrain. As the album progresses, this refrain begins to emulate the ceremonial rhythm of devotional music, pulling the listener further into Korwar's unique percussive realm.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Following an eight-year break, Lebanese vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a contemplative set of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-sung, dub-tinged sound that established her as a fixture in the region's indie music scene since the nineties. Hamdan's voice is gentle and ruminative, delivering tender melodies over the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop groove of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a quivering, yearning vocal technique over electronic lines with North African flavors and skittering electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is minimal and subtle, yet this austerity provides the ideal environment for Hamdan's deeply felt songwriting to resonate. This is a record well worth the long anticipation.
Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico producer Debit specializes in haunting reinterpretations of archival audio. On her new album, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dub-inflected version of the rhythmic Latin American dance genre. Debit slows this sound down to a crawl, running its signature synths and off-beat rhythm through layers of murk and static to create a novel, foreboding rhythm. Sometimes ambient and discomfiting, Debit morphs the joyous dancefloor sound of cumbia into a lasting, ghostly echo.
7. The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sheer intensity is the operative word for the records of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a onslaught of sirens, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics over the longstanding Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This captures the energetic sound of favela street parties. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the intensity, 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 hyperactive and overwhelmingly noisy 40-minute listening experience. Give in to the assault and Vieira's unapologetic productions become strangely liberating.
Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco beats and Punjabi folk melodies is a reissued gem. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an unusually compelling fusion of the synthetic sound of early synthesizers and drum machines with her ornate classical Indian singing style. Electronic percussion echoes the undulating tones of the traditional drums, while synth lines parallels the traditional sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Elsewhere, Latin-inflected grooves takes center stage on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a fast-paced walking disco bassline. It's a party blend created over a decade before the Asian Underground explosion.
5. The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor
From Mongolia vocalist Enji's delicate new release, Sonor, develops her jazz-influenced sound to present some of her most wide-ranging music so far. Stepping outside her background 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 twanging 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 manages to stay personal, inviting the listener into the gentle soundscape of her distinctive voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow
Drawing on the 1960s legacy of Anatolian rock pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work alongside her group blends the distinctive buzz of the amplified traditional lute with dreamy Mellotron and soulful tunes. It's a retro-70s aesthetic rooted in Yıldırım's powerful high register and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape aesthetic. But, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group reaches dynamic new territory. They create sinuous, downtempo grooves and soaring vocals that impart a novel, quirky twist to the Turkish psych sound.
3. Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Catholic requiem mass music, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings converge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable fourth album. Orchestrating music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett explore a vast range including the liturgical vocals 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. It is Pim
