The Ten Greatest International Albums of the Year 2025
The past twelve months have offered a rich tapestry of international music that expanded horizons. Presenting a selection of ten notable albums that shaped the year in music.
Number Ten: The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of insistent percussion might not seem the most approachable musical proposition. But, Indian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar turns this insistent rhythm into a strangely alluring piece. Leading an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar crafts a intricate percussive vocabulary over the record's ten sections. The album references Steve Reich's phasing motifs combined with classical Indian rhythmic patterns, everything tethered in the reiteration of a persistent, driving figure. Over its duration, this refrain evokes the trance-inducing cycles of ritual music, drawing the listener further into Korwar's distinctive percussive universe.
9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Following an eight-year break, Arab singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a melancholy set of songs. She expands on the Arabic-sung, dub-influenced sound that cemented her status in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is gentle and thoughtful, delivering delicate melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rolling trip-hop beat of Vows. During more energetic moments such as Shadia and Abyss, she adopts a wavering, yearning vibrato over Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and skittering electronic percussion. The album's sound is lean and understated, yet this austerity creates the ideal setting for Hamdan's deeply felt songwriting to take center stage. The album proves to be well worth the long anticipation.
Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Desaceleradas
Mexican electronic artist Debit excels at uncanny reworkings of traditional music. On her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby version of the shuffling Latin American dance music genre. Debit drags this sound to a near-halt, processing its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm through layers of sludge and hiss to produce a fresh, sinister rhythm. Periodically ambient and discomfiting, Debit transforms the joyous party music of cumbia into a enduring, ethereal echo.
7. DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sensory overload is the key term for the records of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a tumult of alarms, explosive bass tones and shouted lyrics over the longstanding Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This recreates the energetic sound of favela street parties. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the energy, throwing in everything from techno kick drums to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a notably frenetic and deafeningly intense 40-minute sonic journey. Surrender to the cacophony and Vieira's bold productions become oddly liberating.
6. Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a rediscovered masterpiece. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an strikingly engaging fusion of the metallic sound of early synthesizers and programmed drums with her ornate classical Indian vocal technique. Electronic percussion echoes the rolling tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody parallels the classic sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, Latin-inflected grooves comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a up-tempo disco bass groove. It's a party blend delivered more than ten years before the rise of Asian Underground music.
Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance
From Mongolia singer Enji's soft fourth album, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-inflected sound to offer some of her most wide-ranging music yet. Moving away from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces veer from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodies of downtempo number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-inflected cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a live band rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay personal, drawing the listener into the warm acoustics of her singular voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow
Channeling the 60s heritage of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's third record with her band Grup Şimşek fuses the distinctive buzz of the electrified saz with drifting Mellotron and R&B-inflected lines. It's a retro-70s aesthetic anchored in Yıldırım's strong falsetto and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. However, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group ventures into lively new territory. They craft smooth, downtempo grooves and powerful vocals that give a new, unconventional spin to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
Number Three: Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Catholic requiem mass music, Eastern European folk melodies and symphonic arrangements all come together on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary latest work. Arranging music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through 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 dembow rhythms of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim
