Our 10 Greatest Worldwide Releases of the Year 2025
The past twelve months have offered a rich tapestry of international sounds that pushed boundaries. Presenting a selection of ten remarkable albums that defined the year in music.
Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
A continuous, 40-minute suite of cyclical drumming may not appear the easiest musical proposition. Yet, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar transforms this persistent pulse into a hypnotically captivating album. Guiding an trio of three drummers, Korwar crafts a complex percussive language throughout the record's 10 movements. The work references minimalist concepts from Steve Reich as well as Indian classical phrasing, each grounded in the recurrence of a persistent, thrumming figure. The longer one listens, this refrain evokes the trance-inducing cycles of ritual music, drawing the listener deeper into Korwar's singular percussive realm.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
Coming off an hiatus of eight years, Arab singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a mournful album of songs. She expands on the Arabic-sung, dub-tinged style that cemented her status in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the nineties. Hamdan's voice is soft and ruminative, singing tender melodies over the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop groove of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she adopts a wavering, longing vocal technique over north African synth lines and clattering electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is lean and subtle, yet this simplicity offers the perfect setting for Hamdan's expressive compositions to take center stage. This is a record well worth the wait.
Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Desaceleradas
From Mexico electronic artist Debit excels at eerie reinterpretations of traditional music. For her new album, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby take of the rhythmic Latin American dance music genre. Debit decelerates this sound even further, running its signature synths and syncopated rhythm through sheets of distortion and static to create a new, sinister rhythm. Periodically atmospheric and uneasy, Debit converts the celebratory party music of cumbia into a persistent, spectral afterimage.
Number Seven: The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Maximalism is the defining principle for the records of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira piles a tumult of alarms, explosive bass tones and shouted lyrics on top of the enduring Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This captures the energetic sound of urban celebrations. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the intensity, throwing in 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 particularly hyperactive and punishingly loud 40-minute listening experience. Give in to the assault and Vieira's bold productions become strangely liberating.
Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release of disco beats and traditional Punjabi tunes is a newly appreciated treasure. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an unusually compelling combination of the synthetic sound of early synthesizers and drum machines with her ornate classical Indian vocal technique. Electronic percussion echoes the wavelike tones of the traditional drums, while synth lines replicates the classic sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, bossa nova rhythm takes center stage on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya boasts a driving funky bass rhythm. It's a dancefloor fusion created over a decade before the Asian Underground explosion.
Number Five: Enji – Resonance
Mongolian singer Enji's soft latest record, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-influenced sound to present some of her most diverse music so far. Stepping outside her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces range from the gentle jazz-pop melodies 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 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a live band rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still intimate, drawing the listener into the tender soundscape of her singular voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – Yarın Yoksa
Channeling 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 electric jangle of the electrified saz with drifting keyboard and classic soul melodies. It's a retro-70s aesthetic rooted in Yıldırım's powerful high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated aesthetic. Yet, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group ventures into lively new territory. They create sinuous, downtempo grooves and lifting vocals that give a novel, quirky twist to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
Number Three: The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Gregorian chants, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements merge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable latest work. Orchestrating music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through a vast range including the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic reggaeton-inspired beats of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim
