The 10 best global albums of 2025

10. Sarathy Korwar - There Is Beauty, There Already A 40-minute suite of continuous, repetitive drumming might not sound like the most accessible music but south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar’s latest album, There Is Beauty, There Already, turns this concept of insistent rhythm into strangely alluring work. Leading an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar develops a dense percussive language throughout the record’s 10 movements, channelling Steve Reich’s phasing motifs as well as Indian classical phrasing and anchoring each in the repetition of a continual, thrumming refrain. As the album continues, the refrain begins to emulate the hypnotic repetition of ceremonial rhythm, drawing us further into Korwar’s percussive world the longer we listen. A remarkable album … Lido Pimienta.Photograph: Ada Navarro Menacing grooves … Debit.Photograph: Monse Guajardo Rediscovered gem … Mohinder Kaur Bhamra performing in Bedford, circa 1980.Photograph: Courtesy of Kuljit Bhamra Turkish with a twist … Derya Yildirim & Grup Şimşek Dextrous flow … Negros Tou Moria.Photograph: Giannis Stasinopoulos Delightfully unconstrained … Titanic.Photograph: Jasmine Salvino 9. Yasmine Hamdan - I Remember I Forget After an eight-year break, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan returns with a mournful collection of songs expanding on the Arabic-language, dub-influenced sound that has made her a staple of the region’s indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan’s voice is quiet and ruminative, singing tender melodies over the bowing strings of Hon and the rumbling trip-hop groove of Vows, while on livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a wavering, yearning vibrato over north African synth lines and rattling electronic percussion. The production is sparse and understated yet that minimalism provides the perfect setting for Hamdan’s emotive songwriting to shine through. Well worth the wait. 8. Debit - Desaceleradas Mexican producer Debit has a knack for eerie reinterpretations of historical sounds. In 2022’s The Long Count, she used samples of Mayan flutes to create a new electronically filtered musical language for the ancient instruments and on her latest release, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 90s style of cumbia rebajada - a slowed, dubby take on the shuffling Latin American dance music genre. Debit slows this sound even further, processing its signature synths and syncopated beat through layers of sludge and static to produce a new, menacing groove. At turns ambient and discomfiting, Debit turns the joyous dancefloor sound of cumbia into a lasting, ghostly echo. Read the full review 7. DJ K - Radio Libertadora! Maximalism is the key term when it comes to the records of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Coining his own genre of “ bruxaria ” (witchcraft), Vieira layers a cacophony of sirens, explosive bass tones and screamed lyrics over the longstanding Brazilian dance style of baile funk to emulate the propulsive sound of favela street parties. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the intensity, adding everything from techno kick drums to the Islamic call to prayer into his bruxaria mix, creating a particularly frenetic and punishingly loud 40-minute listening experience. Surrender...

Preview: ~500 words