This Ten Best International Records of the Year 2025
Looking back on the musical landscape of worldwide music that pushed boundaries. We explore ten exceptional albums that shaped the year in music.
10. Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of cyclical percussion might not seem the most accessible listening experience. But, Indian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar converts this persistent pulse into a hypnotically captivating piece. Directing an group of three drummers, Korwar crafts a complex percussive language over the record's 10 movements. The work references Steve Reich's phasing motifs as well as Indian classical phrasing, all anchored in the repetition of a continual, pulsing motif. As the album progresses, this refrain evokes the hypnotic repetition of ritual music, pulling the listener further into Korwar's singular percussive universe.
9. The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
After an eight-year break, Lebanese vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a contemplative album of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-language, dub-tinged style that established her as a fixture in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is quiet and introspective, delivering soft 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 employs a trembling, yearning vocal technique against north African synth lines and skittering electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is minimal and subtle, yet this simplicity provides the perfect setting for Hamdan's deeply felt lyricism to shine through. This is a record truly deserving of the long anticipation.
Number Eight: Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico electronic artist Debit specializes in eerie reimaginings of archival audio. On her latest release, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dub-inflected version of the rhythmic Latin American dance music genre. Debit decelerates this sound to a near-halt, running its signature synths and off-beat rhythm through layers of murk and hiss to create a novel, menacing groove. At turns atmospheric and unsettling, Debit morphs the joyous dancefloor sound of cumbia into a lasting, ethereal afterimage.
7. The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sheer intensity is the key term for the music of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a onslaught of alarms, explosive bass tones and shouted lyrics over the longstanding Brazilian genre of baile funk. This recreates the driving sound of urban celebrations. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the ferocity, 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 hyperactive and deafeningly intense 40-minute sonic journey. Give in to the noise and Vieira's bold productions become unexpectedly freeing.
Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco music and Punjabi folk melodies is a rediscovered gem. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an remarkably engaging fusion of the metallic sound of early synthesizers and drum machines with her melismatic Indian classical vocal technique. Electronic percussion mirrors the wavelike tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody parallels the traditional sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Elsewhere, bossa nova rhythm takes center stage on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya boasts a driving disco bass groove. It's a dancefloor fusion created more than ten years before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
Number Five: Enji – Resonance
From Mongolia vocalist Enji's gentle new release, Sonor, develops her jazz-influenced sound to deliver some of her most diverse music so far. Moving away from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks travel from the soft 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 sprightly, funk-tinged cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a ensemble rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still close, pulling the listener into the gentle soundscape of her distinctive voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa
Channeling the 60s heritage of Anatolian rock established by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's new album with her band Grup Şimşek fuses the distinctive buzz of the amplified traditional lute with woozy keyboard and R&B-inflected lines. It's a retro-70s aesthetic rooted in Yıldırım's powerful high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. However, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group finds vibrant new territory. They develop sinuous, slow-burning grooves and lifting vocals that lend a fresh, unconventional interpretation to the Turkish psych sound.
Number Three: Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Sacred music, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings merge on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's stunning fourth album. Orchestrating music for the sixty-member 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
