Our 10 Top Worldwide Albums of 2025
Looking back on the musical landscape of international music that expanded horizons. Here is a countdown of ten remarkable albums that characterized the year in music.
10. Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
A continuous, 40-minute suite of insistent drumming may not appear the most accessible listening experience. But, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar turns this insistent rhythm into a strangely alluring piece. Leading an group of three drummers, Korwar develops a complex percussive dialect throughout the record's ten sections. The work channels minimalist concepts from Steve Reich alongside Indian classical phrasing, everything tethered in the repetition of a ongoing, pulsing figure. The longer one listens, this refrain begins to emulate the ceremonial rhythm of ritual music, pulling the listener deeper into Korwar's singular percussive world.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
After an long absence, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a melancholy set of songs. She expands on the Arabic-language, dub-tinged sound that cemented her status in the region's indie music scene since the nineties. Hamdan's vocal delivery is soft and ruminative, delivering soft melodies over the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop groove of Vows. During more energetic moments such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a quivering, longing vocal technique against Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and rattling electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is lean and understated, yet this simplicity offers the ideal environment for Hamdan's deeply felt songwriting to shine through. This is a record truly deserving of the long anticipation.
Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico electronic artist Debit has a knack for uncanny reinterpretations of traditional music. For her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby take of the rhythmic Latin American dance music genre. Debit decelerates this sound down to a crawl, processing its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm via veils of sludge and hiss to create a new, sinister beat. Periodically ambient and uneasy, Debit morphs the joyous dancefloor sound of cumbia into a lasting, ethereal afterimage.
7. The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Maximalism is the operative word for the output of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a cacophony of sirens, explosive bass tones and shouted lyrics over the enduring Brazilian genre of baile funk. This captures the driving sound of neighborhood block parties. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the intensity, adding everything from four-on-the-floor techno beats to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a especially hyperactive and punishingly loud forty-minute sonic journey. Give in to the cacophony and Vieira's unapologetic productions become strangely exhilarating.
Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a newly appreciated treasure. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an strikingly compelling blend of the metallic sound of electronic keyboards and drum machines with her melismatic Indian classical vocal technique. Electronic percussion echoes the rolling tones of the traditional drums, while synth lines doubles the traditional sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, Latin-inflected grooves takes center stage on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a up-tempo walking disco bassline. It's a club-ready hybrid pioneered more than ten years before the Asian Underground explosion.
Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor
Mongolian singer Enji's soft new release, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-inflected 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 11 tracks range from the gentle jazz-pop melodics of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a sprightly, funk-tinged cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a live band rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still close, drawing the listener into the warm acoustics of her unique voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa
Drawing on the 1960s legacy of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's new album alongside her group merges the electric jangle of the electrified saz with dreamy keyboard and soulful tunes. It's a retro-70s aesthetic anchored in Yıldırım's powerful falsetto and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape aesthetic. Yet, on Turkish standards such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group finds vibrant new territory. They develop smooth, downtempo grooves and powerful vocals that give a novel, unconventional twist to the Turkish psych sound.
Number Three: The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Gregorian chants, Eastern European folk melodies and symphonic arrangements merge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary fourth album. Orchestrating music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through everything from the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic dembow rhythms of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim
