This Ten Greatest International Albums of 2025
Looking back on the musical landscape of global music that defied expectations. Presenting a selection of ten remarkable albums that defined the year in music.
10. Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
A continuous, 40-minute suite of cyclical percussion could sound like it isn't the most accessible listening experience. Yet, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar converts this driving beat into a unexpectedly magnetic work. Leading an group of three drummers, Korwar develops a dense percussive vocabulary throughout the record's ten parts. His composition draws from the phasing techniques of Steve Reich as well as Indian classical phrasing, everything tethered in the recurrence of a persistent, thrumming figure. The longer one listens, this refrain starts to mirror the hypnotic repetition of devotional music, pulling the listener further into Korwar's unique percussive universe.
9. The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
Coming off an eight-year break, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a melancholy collection of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-language, dub-influenced aesthetic that established her as a fixture in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is quiet and thoughtful, delivering tender melodies atop the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop beat of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a wavering, yearning vocal technique against north African synth lines and skittering electronic percussion. The album's sound is minimal and subtle, yet this minimalism offers the ideal setting for Hamdan's emotive lyricism to shine through. The album proves to be truly deserving of the wait.
Number Eight: Debit – Desaceleradas
Mexican electronic artist Debit has a knack for eerie reinterpretations of archival audio. For her latest release, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected version of the shuffling Latin American dance music genre. Debit decelerates this sound even further, running its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm through veils of sludge and hiss to produce a novel, foreboding beat. Sometimes ambient and uneasy, Debit morphs the celebratory party music of cumbia into a persistent, ethereal memory.
7. The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sensory overload is the key term for the records of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a tumult of alarms, explosive bass tones and shouted lyrics over the classic Brazilian genre of baile funk. This recreates the propulsive sound of favela street parties. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the intensity, throwing in everything from four-on-the-floor techno beats to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a notably frenetic and deafeningly intense forty-minute sonic journey. Submit to the noise and Vieira's bold productions become unexpectedly freeing.
6. Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a rediscovered gem. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an unusually compelling fusion of the synthetic sound of early synthesizers and drum machines with her ornate Indian classical singing style. Drum machine patterns echoes the undulating tones of the tabla, while synthesiser melody replicates the classic sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. At other times, bossa nova rhythm takes center stage on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a driving funky bass rhythm. It's a dancefloor fusion delivered over a decade before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance
Mongolian vocalist Enji's delicate new release, Sonor, expands on her jazz-inflected sound to deliver some of her most wide-ranging music so far. Stepping outside her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs range from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodies of downtempo number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a energetic, funk-tinged cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Showcasing a ensemble rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still close, inviting the listener into the gentle acoustics of her singular voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow
Drawing on the psychedelic tradition of Turkish psychedelia established by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's third record alongside her group fuses the electric jangle of the amplified traditional lute with woozy Mellotron and R&B-inflected lines. It's a retro-70s aesthetic rooted in Yıldırım's strong falsetto and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape aesthetic. However, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group reaches lively new territory. They create slinking, slow-burning grooves and lifting vocals that give a new, off-kilter interpretation to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
Number Three: Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Gregorian chants, Czech harpsichord folksong and orchestral strings converge on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's stunning latest work. Orchestrating music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett explore a vast range including the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated dembow rhythms of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim
