Our Ten Greatest International Albums of the Year 2025
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the worldwide releases that pushed boundaries. Here is a countdown of ten remarkable albums that defined the year in music.
Number Ten: The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
A continuous, 40-minute suite of repetitive drumming could sound like it isn't the most accessible musical proposition. However, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar turns this insistent rhythm into a unexpectedly magnetic piece. Directing an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar crafts a complex percussive dialect over the record's 10 movements. The album references the phasing techniques of Steve Reich alongside classical Indian rhythmic patterns, each grounded in the reiteration of a continual, driving motif. The longer one listens, this refrain starts to mirror the hypnotic repetition of ritual music, pulling the listener deeper into Korwar's distinctive percussive universe.
9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Coming off an eight-year break, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a mournful collection of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-sung, dub-influenced style that established her as a fixture in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the nineties. Hamdan's vocal delivery is soft and thoughtful, singing tender melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rolling trip-hop groove of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a quivering, longing vocal technique against north African synth lines and rattling electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is sparse and restrained, yet this minimalism offers the ideal setting for Hamdan's emotive compositions to take center stage. This is a record truly deserving of the long anticipation.
8. The Mexican Producer Debit – Desaceleradas
Mexican electronic artist Debit specializes in eerie reinterpretations of archival audio. For her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby interpretation of the shuffling Latin American dance genre. Debit decelerates this sound to a near-halt, running its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm through layers of distortion and static to create a novel, menacing groove. Sometimes ambient and unsettling, Debit converts the exuberant dancefloor sound of cumbia into a enduring, ghostly memory.
7. The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Maximalism is the defining principle for the output of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a tumult of sirens, explosive bass tones and shouted lyrics over the classic Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This recreates 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 the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly hyperactive and overwhelmingly noisy forty-minute listening experience. Surrender to the noise and Vieira's bold productions become unexpectedly freeing.
Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco beats and Punjabi folk melodies is a rediscovered treasure. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an strikingly engaging combination of the synthetic sound of early synthesizers and drum machines with her fluid classical Indian vocal technique. Electronic percussion mirrors the rolling tones of the traditional drums, while synth lines doubles the classic sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. At other times, bossa nova rhythm comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya boasts a up-tempo disco bass groove. It's a party blend pioneered over a decade before the rise of Asian Underground music.
Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance
From Mongolia singer Enji's soft latest record, Sonor, expands on her jazz-influenced sound to offer some of her broadest music yet. Stepping outside her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs travel from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodics of downtempo number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a energetic, funk-inflected cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Showcasing a live band rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay intimate, inviting the listener into the warm acoustics of her distinctive voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – If There Is No Tomorrow
Inspired by the 1960s legacy of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's new album with her band Grup Şimşek blends the electric jangle of the electrified saz with drifting Mellotron and soulful tunes. It's a retro-70s aesthetic rooted in Yıldırım's commanding falsetto and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape aesthetic. Yet, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group reaches lively new territory. They create smooth, downtempo grooves and soaring vocals that lend a novel, off-kilter twist to the Turkish psych sound.
3. Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Catholic requiem mass music, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings merge on Colombian 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 Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic reggaeton-inspired beats of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim