Our 10 Best Global Albums of 2025

Looking back on the musical landscape of global sounds that defied expectations. Here is a countdown of ten exceptional albums that defined the year in music.

10. The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already

The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on repetitive percussion could sound like it isn't the easiest listening experience. But, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar transforms this driving beat into a hypnotically captivating piece. Directing an trio of three drummers, Korwar develops a dense percussive vocabulary throughout the record's 10 movements. The work references Steve Reich's phasing motifs alongside Indian classical phrasing, each grounded in the repetition of a ongoing, pulsing figure. The longer one listens, this refrain starts to mirror the trance-inducing cycles of devotional music, pulling the listener deeper into Korwar's distinctive percussive universe.

9. The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember

Coming off an long absence, Lebanese vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a mournful album of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-sung, dub-influenced sound that cemented her status in the Arab alternative scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is soft and ruminative, delivering soft melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop groove of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she adopts a quivering, yearning vibrato against north African synth lines and clattering electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is sparse and subtle, yet this austerity offers the perfect canvas for Hamdan's emotive lyricism to shine through. This is a record truly deserving of the long anticipation.

Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down

From Mexico producer Debit excels at uncanny reworkings of archival audio. On her latest release, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby take of the shuffling Latin American dance music genre. Debit decelerates this sound to a near-halt, running its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm via layers of sludge and hiss to create a fresh, sinister beat. At turns atmospheric and uneasy, Debit transforms the celebratory party music of cumbia into a persistent, ghostly memory.

Number Seven: DJ K – Liberator Radio!

Maximalism is the defining principle for the output of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a tumult of sirens, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the classic Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This recreates the propulsive sound of neighborhood block parties. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the intensity, incorporating everything from techno kick drums to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a notably manic and overwhelmingly noisy forty-minute listening experience. Submit to the assault and Vieira's bold productions become oddly freeing.

Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco

Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release of disco beats and Punjabi folk melodies is a reissued treasure. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an strikingly compelling fusion of the metallic sound of 1980s synthesisers and programmed drums with her melismatic classical Indian singing style. Drum machine patterns echoes the wavelike tones of the tabla, while synthesiser melody parallels 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 features a up-tempo disco bass groove. It's a dancefloor fusion 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 delicate latest record, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-influenced sound to offer some of her most diverse music to date. Stepping outside her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces range from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodies of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-inflected cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a live band rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains personal, pulling the listener into the tender soundscape of her distinctive voice.

4. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – If There Is No Tomorrow

Inspired by the 1960s legacy of Anatolian rock established by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's new album alongside her group merges the metallic twang of the amplified traditional lute with woozy Mellotron and R&B-inflected lines. It's a 1970s throwback sound rooted in Yıldırım's commanding high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated sound. But, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group ventures into lively new territory. They create slinking, slow-burning grooves and soaring vocals that lend a fresh, unconventional spin to the Turkish psych sound.

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 remarkable latest work. Orchestrating 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 interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic dembow rhythms of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim