The 10 Greatest Worldwide Albums of 2025
Looking back on the musical landscape of worldwide music that expanded horizons. Presenting a selection of ten remarkable albums that characterized the year in music.
10. The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on cyclical percussion might not seem the easiest musical proposition. Yet, Indian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar transforms this insistent rhythm into a strangely alluring piece. Leading an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar crafts a complex percussive language over the record's ten sections. The album references Steve Reich's phasing motifs as well as traditional Indian musical phrasing, all anchored in the repetition of a persistent, thrumming figure. The longer one listens, this refrain starts to mirror the ceremonial rhythm of ceremonial music, pulling the listener deeper into Korwar's distinctive percussive world.
9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
After an hiatus of eight years, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a melancholy album of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-language, dub-tinged sound that made her a staple in the Arab alternative scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is soft and introspective, delivering tender melodies over the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop beat of Vows. During more energetic moments such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a quivering, yearning vibrato over Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and rattling electronic percussion. The album's sound is sparse and understated, yet this simplicity offers the ideal setting for Hamdan's expressive compositions to resonate. The album proves to be well worth the wait.
8. Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico electronic artist Debit excels at uncanny reworkings of traditional music. On her latest release, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby take of the rhythmic Latin American dance genre. Debit slows this sound down to a crawl, filtering its signature synths and syncopated rhythm through sheets of murk and hiss to generate a fresh, menacing rhythm. At turns ambient and unsettling, Debit morphs the celebratory party music of cumbia into a lasting, spectral afterimage.
7. DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sensory overload is the operative word for the output of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a tumult of sirens, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics over the classic Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This captures the propulsive sound of urban celebrations. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the ferocity, throwing in everything from techno kick drums to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly hyperactive and deafeningly intense forty-minute listening experience. Surrender to the noise and Vieira's bold productions become oddly freeing.
6. The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a reissued masterpiece. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an remarkably engaging blend of the sharp sound of electronic keyboards and programmed drums with her ornate Indian classical vocal technique. Electronic percussion echoes the undulating tones of the tabla, while synth lines parallels the classic sound of the reed organ 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 channels a up-tempo disco bass groove. It's a dancefloor fusion created over a decade before the Asian Underground explosion.
Number Five: Enji – Resonance
From Mongolia vocalist Enji's delicate fourth album, Sonor, expands on her jazz-influenced sound to deliver some of her most wide-ranging music to date. Stepping outside her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces veer from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodies of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German spoken-word 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 ensemble rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains personal, inviting the listener into the gentle soundscape of her singular voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow
Drawing on the 1960s legacy of Anatolian rock established by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's new album with her band Grup Şimşek fuses the electric jangle of the amplified traditional lute with drifting Mellotron and soulful tunes. It's a 1970s throwback sound grounded in Yıldırım's powerful high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated sound. Yet, on Turkish standards such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group finds dynamic new territory. They create sinuous, slow-burning grooves and soaring vocals that lend a fresh, quirky spin to the Turkish psych sound.
3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Sacred music, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings all come together on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable fourth album. Arranging music for the sixty-member 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 interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated reggaeton-inspired beats of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim
