This Ten Best Global Albums of 2025

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

Number Ten: The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty

An album consisting of a single, extended movement of cyclical drumming might not seem the most accessible listening experience. However, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar converts this insistent rhythm into a unexpectedly magnetic album. Leading an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar develops a dense percussive vocabulary throughout the record's 10 movements. The album references minimalist concepts from Steve Reich alongside Indian classical phrasing, everything tethered in the reiteration of a ongoing, thrumming refrain. As the album progresses, this refrain evokes the trance-inducing cycles of devotional music, luring the listener deeper into Korwar's distinctive percussive world.

Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget

Following an long absence, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a melancholy album of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-sung, dub-tinged style that made her a staple in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is soft and introspective, delivering tender melodies over the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rolling trip-hop beat of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a wavering, yearning vocal technique against Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and rattling electronic percussion. The production is lean and restrained, yet this austerity creates the perfect canvas for Hamdan's emotive lyricism to shine through. The album proves to be well worth the wait.

8. Debit – Desaceleradas

Mexican producer Debit excels at uncanny reworkings of historical sounds. On her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby version of the shuffling Latin American dance music genre. Debit slows this sound down to a crawl, filtering its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm via veils of distortion and hiss to produce a new, sinister rhythm. Sometimes atmospheric and unsettling, Debit morphs the joyous dancefloor sound of cumbia into a enduring, ethereal echo.

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

Maximalism is the defining principle for the music 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 screamed lyrics on top of the classic Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This captures the driving sound of urban celebrations. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the energy, incorporating everything from driving techno rhythms to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a especially hyperactive and punishingly loud forty-minute listening experience. Surrender to the cacophony and Vieira's bold productions become unexpectedly exhilarating.

6. Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco

Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release of disco beats and Punjabi folk melodies is a newly appreciated masterpiece. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an remarkably captivating blend of the metallic sound of 1980s synthesisers and programmed drums with her fluid classical Indian vocal technique. Electronic percussion mimics the rolling tones of the tabla, while synthesiser melody parallels the traditional sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. At other times, Latin-inflected grooves comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a driving funky bass rhythm. It's a club-ready hybrid delivered more than ten years before the Asian Underground explosion.

Number Five: Enji – Resonance

From Mongolia vocalist Enji's delicate latest record, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-influenced sound to deliver some of her most wide-ranging music so far. Departing from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces veer from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodies of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-tinged cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a live band rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay intimate, inviting the listener into the tender soundscape of her distinctive voice.

Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – Yarın Yoksa

Channeling the 60s heritage of Anatolian rock established by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work with her band Grup Şimşek fuses the distinctive buzz of the electrified saz with woozy keyboard and classic soul melodies. It's a nostalgic vibe grounded in Yıldırım's powerful high register and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape aesthetic. But, on classic Turkish songs such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group reaches dynamic new territory. They develop smooth, downtempo grooves and lifting vocals that lend a fresh, off-kilter twist to the Anatolian psychedelic style.

3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – The Beauty

Sacred music, Czech harpsichord folksong and orchestral strings converge on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary latest work. Arranging 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 theatrical counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic reggaeton-inspired beats of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim