Our 10 Best Worldwide Records of the Year 2025

Looking back on the musical landscape of worldwide sounds that pushed boundaries. Presenting a selection of ten remarkable albums that defined the year in music.

10. The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty

The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on cyclical drumming could sound like it isn't the easiest musical proposition. But, Indian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar turns this insistent rhythm into a hypnotically captivating piece. Directing an trio of three drummers, Korwar develops a dense percussive vocabulary throughout the record's ten sections. The album channels the phasing techniques of Steve Reich as well as Indian classical phrasing, all anchored in the reiteration of a continual, pulsing motif. Over its duration, this refrain evokes the ceremonial rhythm of ceremonial music, pulling the listener deeper into Korwar's unique percussive universe.

9. The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget

Coming off an long absence, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a melancholy set of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-language, dub-influenced style that established her as a fixture in the Arab alternative scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is quiet and ruminative, delivering soft melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop beat of Vows. During more energetic moments such as Shadia and Abyss, she adopts a trembling, yearning vocal technique against electronic lines with North African flavors and rattling electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is sparse and understated, yet this austerity offers the perfect environment for Hamdan's emotive lyricism to resonate. This is a record truly deserving of the long anticipation.

8. The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down

Mexican electronic artist Debit has a knack for haunting reworkings of historical sounds. For her new album, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby version of the shuffling Latin American dance genre. Debit decelerates this sound down to a crawl, running its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm via layers of distortion and static to generate a fresh, foreboding rhythm. Sometimes atmospheric and uneasy, Debit transforms the celebratory party music of cumbia into a enduring, ethereal echo.

7. The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Radio Libertadora!

Sheer intensity is the defining principle for the output of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira piles a tumult of sirens, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics over the classic Brazilian genre of baile funk. This captures the propulsive sound of urban celebrations. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the ferocity, adding everything from techno kick drums to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a especially manic and deafeningly intense forty-minute listening experience. Surrender to the cacophony and Vieira's brash productions become oddly liberating.

Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi

Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco beats and traditional Punjabi tunes is a reissued masterpiece. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an strikingly engaging blend of the sharp sound of electronic keyboards and programmed drums with her fluid classical Indian singing style. Drum machine patterns mirrors the undulating tones of the traditional drums, while synth lines replicates the traditional sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. At other times, Latin-inflected grooves takes center stage on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a driving disco bass groove. It's a club-ready hybrid delivered over a decade before the Asian Underground explosion.

Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance

Mongolian singer Enji's delicate fourth album, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-inflected sound to present some of her broadest music to date. Moving away from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces range from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodics of slow-burning 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 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a ensemble rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still personal, inviting the listener into the gentle soundscape of her singular voice.

4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – Yarın Yoksa

Channeling the psychedelic tradition of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work alongside her group fuses the distinctive buzz of the amplified traditional lute with dreamy Mellotron and soulful tunes. It's a nostalgic vibe grounded in Yıldırım's strong high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated aesthetic. But, on classic Turkish songs such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group reaches lively new territory. They develop slinking, downtempo grooves and lifting vocals that give a novel, quirky interpretation to the Anatolian psychedelic style.

Number Three: The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza

Gregorian chants, Eastern European folk melodies and symphonic arrangements all come together on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary latest work. Arranging music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett traverse a vast range including the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated dembow rhythms of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim