The 10 Finest International Records of 2025
Looking back on the musical landscape of global releases that expanded horizons. We explore ten exceptional albums that characterized the year in music.
Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of repetitive drumming might not seem the most approachable listening experience. However, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar converts this persistent pulse into a unexpectedly magnetic work. Guiding an group of three drummers, Korwar develops a complex percussive language across the record's ten sections. The album draws from Steve Reich's phasing motifs alongside Indian classical phrasing, all anchored in the reiteration of a persistent, driving figure. As the album progresses, this refrain evokes the trance-inducing cycles of ceremonial music, drawing the listener further into Korwar's distinctive percussive realm.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Coming off an eight-year break, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a mournful album of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-sung, dub-influenced sound that cemented her status in the Arab alternative scene since the nineties. Hamdan's vocal delivery is gentle and introspective, singing delicate melodies atop the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rolling trip-hop groove of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a wavering, yearning vibrato over electronic lines with North African flavors and rattling electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is sparse and restrained, yet this simplicity offers the ideal environment for Hamdan's deeply felt compositions to shine through. It is well worth the long anticipation.
8. Debit – Desaceleradas
Mexican producer Debit has a knack for haunting reworkings of traditional music. For her new album, 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 decelerates this sound even further, filtering its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm via layers of distortion and hiss to produce a novel, menacing beat. Sometimes atmospheric and unsettling, Debit transforms the joyous party music of cumbia into a lasting, ghostly echo.
7. DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sheer intensity is the operative word for the records of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a onslaught of sirens, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the enduring Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This emulates the propulsive sound of favela street parties. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the energy, throwing in everything from driving techno rhythms to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a notably hyperactive and punishingly loud 40-minute listening experience. Give in to the assault and Vieira's bold productions become oddly exhilarating.
6. The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco music and Punjabi folk melodies is a reissued masterpiece. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an strikingly engaging fusion of the sharp sound of 1980s synthesisers and programmed drums with her ornate Indian classical singing style. Drum machine patterns echoes the undulating tones of the tabla, while synth lines parallels the classic sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. At other times, Latin-inflected grooves is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a up-tempo walking disco bassline. It's a party blend pioneered over a decade before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
Number Five: Enji – Sonor
From Mongolia vocalist Enji's soft fourth album, Sonor, expands on her jazz-inflected sound to present some of her most diverse music so far. Stepping outside her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks range from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodics of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a sprightly, funk-inflected cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a full backing band rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still intimate, inviting the listener into the tender acoustics of her unique voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa
Channeling the psychedelic tradition of Turkish psychedelia established by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's third record alongside her group fuses the metallic twang of the electrified saz with drifting Mellotron and soulful tunes. It's a 1970s throwback sound grounded in Yıldırım's strong falsetto and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. Yet, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group reaches vibrant new territory. They create smooth, downtempo grooves and lifting vocals that impart a fresh, off-kilter twist to the Turkish psych sound.
Number Three: Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Catholic requiem mass music, Eastern European folk melodies and symphonic arrangements converge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary latest work. Orchestrating music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett traverse everything from the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical 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
