This 10 Greatest International Records of the Year 2025
Looking back on the musical landscape of worldwide releases that pushed boundaries. Here is a countdown of ten remarkable albums that shaped the year in music.
10. Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on insistent percussion could sound like it isn't the easiest listening experience. However, Indian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar transforms this driving beat into a strangely alluring album. Leading an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar creates a complex percussive vocabulary across the record's 10 movements. The album draws from minimalist concepts from Steve Reich combined with classical Indian rhythmic patterns, each grounded in the reiteration of a continual, thrumming figure. Over its duration, this refrain evokes the hypnotic repetition of ceremonial music, drawing the listener deeper into Korwar's distinctive percussive realm.
Number Nine: The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Coming off an hiatus of eight years, Lebanese vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a mournful set of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-language, dub-tinged style that made her a staple in the region's indie music scene since the nineties. Hamdan's vocal delivery is soft and thoughtful, singing delicate melodies atop the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop groove of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a trembling, longing vocal technique over north African synth lines and skittering electronic percussion. The production is minimal and subtle, yet this austerity offers the ideal canvas for Hamdan's expressive compositions to resonate. This is a record truly deserving of the wait.
Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Desaceleradas
From Mexico producer Debit has a knack for haunting reimaginings of historical sounds. For her new album, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby take of the shuffling Latin American musical style. Debit slows this sound even further, running its signature synths and off-beat rhythm through veils of sludge and hiss to generate a new, sinister rhythm. At turns ambient and discomfiting, Debit morphs the celebratory party music of cumbia into a persistent, ghostly afterimage.
7. DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Maximalism is the key term for the records of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a onslaught of sirens, explosive bass tones and shouted lyrics over the classic Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This emulates the propulsive sound of favela street parties. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the intensity, incorporating everything from driving techno rhythms to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a especially manic and punishingly loud 40-minute sonic journey. Submit to the cacophony and Vieira's bold productions become strangely exhilarating.
Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco beats and traditional Punjabi tunes is a rediscovered masterpiece. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an strikingly compelling fusion of the sharp sound of electronic keyboards and programmed drums with her fluid Indian classical vocal technique. Drum machine patterns mirrors the wavelike tones of the tabla, while synth lines replicates the traditional sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. At other times, bossa nova rhythm is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a driving funky bass rhythm. It's a party blend created over a decade before the rise of Asian Underground music.
Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance
Mongolian vocalist Enji's gentle fourth album, Sonor, develops her jazz-influenced sound to present some of her most wide-ranging music so far. Departing from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces range from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodies of downtempo number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-inflected cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Showcasing a ensemble rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains close, pulling the listener into the tender acoustics of her unique voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow
Drawing on the 1960s legacy of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work with her band Grup Şimşek blends the distinctive buzz of the electrified saz with drifting Mellotron and soulful tunes. It's a retro-70s aesthetic anchored in Yıldırım's strong falsetto and shaped by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated sound. Yet, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group finds dynamic new territory. They develop slinking, downtempo grooves and powerful vocals that give a novel, unconventional spin to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Gregorian chants, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings all come together on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable latest work. Arranging music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett explore everything from 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. Yet, it is Pim
