The 10 Best Worldwide Records of the Year 2025

Looking back on the musical landscape of international music that expanded horizons. Presenting a selection of ten notable albums that characterized the year in music.

Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already

The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on cyclical drumming might not seem the most accessible listening experience. Yet, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar converts this driving beat into a strangely alluring work. Guiding an trio of three drummers, Korwar creates a intricate percussive language across the record's 10 movements. His composition references minimalist concepts from Steve Reich as well as classical Indian rhythmic patterns, everything tethered in the recurrence of a persistent, driving figure. Over its duration, this refrain starts to mirror the ceremonial rhythm of devotional music, luring the listener deeper into Korwar's unique percussive universe.

9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember

Coming off an long absence, Arab singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan returns with a melancholy collection of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-sung, dub-tinged sound that cemented her status in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is soft and ruminative, delivering tender melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop groove of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she adopts a quivering, longing vibrato over north African synth lines and clattering electronic percussion. The production is minimal and restrained, yet this minimalism creates the perfect canvas for Hamdan's emotive songwriting to shine through. It is well worth the wait.

8. Debit – Slowed Down

Mexican producer Debit excels at uncanny reimaginings of archival audio. On her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected version of the shuffling Latin American dance genre. Debit decelerates this sound down to a crawl, processing its signature synths and syncopated rhythm via veils of murk and noise to create a fresh, foreboding rhythm. Periodically atmospheric and uneasy, Debit transforms the celebratory dancefloor sound of cumbia into a enduring, spectral afterimage.

7. DJ K – Radio Libertadora!

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 piles a onslaught of alarms, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics over the longstanding Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This emulates the driving sound of neighborhood block parties. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the intensity, throwing in everything from four-on-the-floor techno beats to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly manic and deafeningly intense forty-minute sonic journey. Submit to the noise and Vieira's brash productions become strangely liberating.

Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco

Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco beats and traditional Punjabi tunes is a reissued treasure. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an remarkably engaging blend of the sharp sound of early synthesizers and programmed drums with her ornate Indian classical vocal technique. Drum machine patterns mimics the wavelike tones of the tabla, while synth lines parallels the classic sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, Latin-inflected grooves is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a driving disco bass groove. It's a club-ready hybrid pioneered more than ten years before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.

Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor

From Mongolia singer Enji's gentle new release, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-inflected sound to offer some of her most wide-ranging music to date. Moving away from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs travel from the gentle jazz-pop melodies of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a sprightly, funk-tinged cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a live band rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still personal, inviting the listener into the gentle acoustics of her singular voice.

4. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa

Channeling the psychedelic tradition of Anatolian rock pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's new album alongside her group blends the metallic twang of the electrified saz with drifting keyboard and classic soul melodies. It's a nostalgic vibe rooted in Yıldırım's powerful falsetto and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape aesthetic. But, on classic Turkish songs such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group ventures into dynamic new territory. They develop sinuous, downtempo grooves and lifting vocals that give a new, off-kilter spin to the Anatolian psychedelic style.

3. Lido Pimienta – The Beauty

Gregorian chants, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings merge on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's stunning fourth album. Orchestrating music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett traverse 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 reggaeton-inspired beats of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim