Our 10 Top Worldwide Albums of 2025
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the international music that expanded horizons. Here is a countdown of ten remarkable albums that shaped the year in music.
Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of repetitive percussion might not seem the easiest musical proposition. Yet, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar transforms this driving beat into a strangely alluring album. Leading an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar crafts a dense percussive dialect over the record's ten parts. The album channels the phasing techniques of Steve Reich combined with traditional Indian musical phrasing, each grounded in the reiteration of a persistent, pulsing figure. As the album progresses, this refrain starts to mirror the trance-inducing cycles of devotional music, pulling the listener deeper into Korwar's distinctive percussive world.
9. The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
Coming off an long absence, Arab singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a melancholy set of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-language, dub-tinged aesthetic that established her as a fixture in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is quiet and introspective, delivering delicate melodies over the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rolling trip-hop beat of Vows. During more energetic moments such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a wavering, longing vocal technique over electronic lines with North African flavors and skittering electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is minimal and subtle, yet this simplicity creates the ideal setting for Hamdan's expressive songwriting to take center stage. It is that justifies the wait.
Number Eight: Debit – Desaceleradas
Mexican electronic artist Debit specializes in uncanny reimaginings of archival audio. On her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby take of the shuffling Latin American dance genre. Debit decelerates this sound down to a crawl, running its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm via sheets of sludge and hiss to generate a novel, menacing rhythm. Periodically ambient and uneasy, Debit converts the exuberant party music of cumbia into a enduring, ghostly memory.
Number Seven: DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sheer intensity is the operative word for the output of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a cacophony of alarms, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics on top of the classic Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This emulates the energetic sound of urban celebrations. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the energy, 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 especially frenetic and deafeningly intense 40-minute sonic journey. Give in to the cacophony and Vieira's brash productions become unexpectedly freeing.
6. The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco beats and traditional Punjabi tunes is a newly appreciated gem. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an strikingly compelling combination of the synthetic sound of early synthesizers and programmed drums with her ornate Indian classical singing style. Drum machine patterns mirrors the wavelike tones of the tabla, while synth lines replicates the traditional sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Elsewhere, Latin-inflected grooves is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya boasts a driving disco bass groove. It's a party blend pioneered more than ten years before the Asian Underground explosion.
Number Five: Enji – Sonor
From Mongolia singer Enji's soft latest record, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-influenced sound to offer some of her most diverse music so far. Moving away from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces range from the gentle jazz-pop melodics of downtempo number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-inflected cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Showcasing a ensemble rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains personal, inviting the listener into the warm acoustics of her distinctive voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa
Drawing on 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 electrified saz with dreamy keyboard and soulful tunes. It's a 1970s throwback sound anchored in Yıldırım's strong high register and influenced by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated sound. Yet, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group ventures into dynamic new territory. They develop slinking, downtempo grooves and powerful vocals that lend a novel, unconventional twist to the Turkish psych sound.
3. Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Catholic requiem mass music, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements 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 traverse everything from the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated dembow rhythms of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim
