Our 10 Top International Albums of 2025
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the international music that expanded horizons. Presenting a selection of ten remarkable albums that shaped the year in music.
Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of repetitive percussion might not seem the easiest musical proposition. However, Indian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar turns this persistent pulse into a strangely alluring album. Leading an trio of three drummers, Korwar crafts a dense percussive language across the record's ten sections. His composition references the phasing techniques of Steve Reich alongside Indian classical phrasing, everything tethered in the reiteration of a continual, driving figure. Over its duration, this refrain evokes the hypnotic repetition of ceremonial music, drawing the listener deeper into Korwar's singular percussive realm.
9. The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
After an long absence, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a contemplative collection of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-language, dub-influenced sound that cemented her status in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the nineties. Hamdan's vocal delivery is gentle and ruminative, delivering delicate melodies over the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop beat of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a trembling, yearning vibrato against electronic lines with North African flavors and skittering electronic percussion. The production is lean and restrained, yet this minimalism provides the ideal environment for Hamdan's emotive songwriting to take center stage. This is a record that justifies the wait.
Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico electronic artist Debit specializes in eerie reinterpretations of historical sounds. For her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected version of the rhythmic Latin American dance genre. Debit slows this sound down to a crawl, filtering its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm via sheets of distortion and noise to generate a new, menacing rhythm. Sometimes atmospheric and uneasy, Debit converts the exuberant party music of cumbia into a persistent, spectral memory.
Number Seven: The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sheer intensity is the operative word for the output of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira piles a onslaught of sirens, explosive bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the enduring Brazilian genre of baile funk. This recreates the propulsive sound of neighborhood block parties. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the energy, adding everything from driving techno rhythms to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a notably hyperactive and punishingly loud forty-minute sonic journey. Give in to the cacophony and Vieira's brash productions become oddly liberating.
6. Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a reissued treasure. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an unusually captivating combination of the synthetic sound of early synthesizers and drum machines with her melismatic classical Indian singing style. Electronic percussion mirrors the wavelike tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody doubles the traditional sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Elsewhere, bossa nova rhythm takes center stage on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya boasts a fast-paced disco bass groove. It's a party blend delivered over a decade before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor
From Mongolia singer Enji's soft latest record, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-inflected sound to deliver some of her most wide-ranging music to date. Stepping outside her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces travel from the soft jazz-pop melodics of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a energetic, funk-tinged cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a ensemble rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains close, inviting the listener into the warm soundscape of her singular voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa
Channeling the 1960s legacy of Turkish psychedelia established by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's third record alongside her group fuses the electric jangle of the amplified traditional lute with drifting Mellotron and classic soul melodies. It's a 1970s throwback sound grounded in Yıldırım's commanding falsetto and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. Yet, on classic Turkish songs such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group finds vibrant new territory. They create sinuous, slow-burning grooves and lifting vocals that give a novel, off-kilter spin to the Turkish psych sound.
3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Sacred music, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements all come together on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's stunning latest work. Arranging music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett traverse a vast range including the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated reggaeton-inspired beats of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim
