The 10 Greatest International Records of 2025
The past twelve months have offered a rich tapestry of worldwide releases that pushed boundaries. Here is a countdown of ten remarkable albums that characterized the year in music.
10. The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on insistent drumming might not seem the most approachable listening experience. However, Indian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar transforms this persistent pulse into a unexpectedly magnetic album. Leading an group of three drummers, Korwar crafts a complex percussive language throughout the record's ten sections. The album references minimalist concepts from Steve Reich combined with Indian classical phrasing, each grounded in the repetition of a ongoing, pulsing refrain. The longer one listens, this refrain evokes the ceremonial rhythm of ritual music, luring the listener further into Korwar's singular percussive universe.
9. The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
After an eight-year break, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a mournful set of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-language, dub-tinged sound that cemented her status in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is soft and ruminative, singing tender melodies atop the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rolling 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 album's sound is lean and subtle, yet this minimalism creates the perfect canvas for Hamdan's expressive compositions to resonate. It is truly deserving of the long anticipation.
8. Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico electronic artist Debit excels at eerie reworkings of historical sounds. For her new album, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby version of the shuffling Latin American musical style. Debit slows this sound down to a crawl, processing its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm via layers of sludge and static to produce a new, sinister beat. Periodically atmospheric and discomfiting, Debit transforms the joyous party music of cumbia into a persistent, ghostly afterimage.
Number Seven: The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sheer intensity is the operative word for the music of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a cacophony of alarms, explosive bass tones and shouted lyrics on top of the classic Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This recreates the driving sound of urban celebrations. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the energy, throwing in everything from four-on-the-floor techno beats to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly frenetic and deafeningly intense 40-minute listening experience. Give in to the noise and Vieira's unapologetic productions become oddly exhilarating.
Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release of disco music and Punjabi folk melodies is a newly appreciated treasure. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an unusually compelling fusion of the synthetic sound of electronic keyboards and drum machines with her ornate Indian classical vocal technique. Drum machine patterns echoes the undulating tones of the tabla, while synth lines parallels the traditional sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Elsewhere, bossa nova rhythm comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a up-tempo disco bass groove. It's a dancefloor fusion created over a decade before the Asian Underground explosion.
Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance
From Mongolia singer Enji's gentle new release, Sonor, expands on her jazz-inflected sound to present some of her most wide-ranging music so far. Moving away from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs range from the gentle jazz-pop melodies of downtempo number Ulbar to the German-language narration 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. Showcasing a ensemble rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still intimate, inviting the listener into the warm acoustics of her distinctive voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – If There Is No Tomorrow
Drawing on the 1960s legacy of Anatolian rock established by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's new album alongside her group merges the distinctive buzz of the electrified saz with drifting Mellotron and soulful tunes. It's a retro-70s aesthetic rooted in Yıldırım's powerful falsetto and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. However, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group ventures into lively new territory. They develop smooth, slow-burning grooves and soaring vocals that impart a new, quirky twist to the Turkish psych sound.
Number Three: The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Catholic requiem mass music, Czech harpsichord folksong and orchestral strings merge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's stunning latest work. Orchestrating music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through 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 brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim
