This Ten Greatest Global Albums of 2025

Looking back on the musical landscape of worldwide music that expanded horizons. We explore 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 may not appear the most approachable musical proposition. However, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar converts this insistent rhythm into a unexpectedly magnetic album. Directing an group of three drummers, Korwar crafts a intricate percussive vocabulary over the record's 10 movements. The work draws from Steve Reich's phasing motifs alongside classical Indian rhythmic patterns, each grounded in the reiteration of a ongoing, pulsing figure. Over its duration, this refrain starts to mirror the ceremonial rhythm of ceremonial music, drawing the listener further into Korwar's singular percussive realm.

9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember

Following an long absence, Lebanese vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan returns with a melancholy album of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-sung, dub-influenced aesthetic that cemented her status in the region's indie music scene since the nineties. Hamdan's vocal delivery is gentle and thoughtful, singing delicate melodies over the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop beat of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she adopts a quivering, yearning vibrato over Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and skittering electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is sparse and restrained, yet this minimalism creates the ideal canvas for Hamdan's expressive songwriting to take center stage. This is a record truly deserving of the long anticipation.

8. The Mexican Producer Debit – Desaceleradas

From Mexico electronic artist Debit excels at haunting reworkings of archival audio. On her new album, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dub-inflected take of the shuffling Latin American dance music genre. Debit slows this sound even further, processing its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm through sheets of sludge and hiss to create a novel, menacing beat. Sometimes ambient and discomfiting, Debit converts the celebratory party music of cumbia into a enduring, spectral echo.

Number Seven: DJ K – Liberator Radio!

Maximalism is the defining principle for the output of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a cacophony of sirens, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics over the classic Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This emulates the energetic sound of urban celebrations. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the ferocity, incorporating everything from four-on-the-floor techno beats to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly manic and punishingly loud 40-minute sonic journey. Surrender to the noise and Vieira's bold productions become oddly liberating.

Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco

Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a newly appreciated masterpiece. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an remarkably captivating combination of the synthetic sound of electronic keyboards and drum machines with her ornate Indian classical vocal technique. Electronic percussion mimics the rolling tones of the tabla, while synthesiser melody replicates the classic sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Elsewhere, bossa nova rhythm takes center stage 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 global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.

Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor

From Mongolia singer Enji's gentle fourth album, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-inflected sound to deliver some of her most wide-ranging music to date. Departing from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces range from the gentle 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-tinged cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Showcasing a ensemble rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay intimate, drawing the listener into the gentle soundscape of her distinctive voice.

4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow

Drawing on the psychedelic tradition of Anatolian rock established by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's third record with her band Grup Şimşek blends the metallic twang of the electrified saz with woozy Mellotron and classic soul melodies. It's a retro-70s aesthetic anchored in Yıldırım's powerful falsetto and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. Yet, on Turkish standards 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 lend a fresh, unconventional twist to the Anatolian psychedelic style.

Number Three: The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – The Beauty

Catholic requiem mass music, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements merge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's stunning latest work. Orchestrating music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through a vast range including the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated dembow rhythms of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim