Our Ten Greatest International Albums of the Year 2025
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the international sounds that expanded horizons. Here is a countdown of ten remarkable albums that defined the year in music.
10. Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
A continuous, 40-minute suite of cyclical percussion may not appear the most approachable musical proposition. But, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar turns this driving beat into a hypnotically captivating album. Directing an trio of three drummers, Korwar creates a complex percussive dialect throughout the record's ten parts. The work channels minimalist concepts from Steve Reich combined with classical Indian rhythmic patterns, everything tethered in the repetition of a continual, driving motif. Over its duration, this refrain evokes the hypnotic repetition of ceremonial music, pulling the listener deeper into Korwar's singular percussive world.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
After an eight-year break, Lebanese vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a melancholy album of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-sung, dub-tinged aesthetic that made her a staple in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is soft and introspective, singing soft melodies atop the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop beat of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a trembling, yearning vocal technique over Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and clattering electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is sparse and subtle, yet this austerity provides the perfect environment for Hamdan's emotive compositions to take center stage. The album proves to be truly deserving of the wait.
Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico electronic artist Debit excels at uncanny reimaginings of archival audio. On her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby version of the shuffling Latin American musical style. Debit decelerates this sound down to a crawl, running its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm through veils of sludge and hiss to generate a new, foreboding groove. Sometimes atmospheric and uneasy, Debit converts the celebratory dancefloor sound of cumbia into a enduring, spectral afterimage.
Number Seven: DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sensory overload is the operative word for the output of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a cacophony of alarms, explosive bass tones and screamed lyrics over the enduring Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This captures the energetic sound of favela street parties. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the intensity, incorporating everything from driving techno rhythms to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a notably frenetic and punishingly loud 40-minute listening experience. Submit to the cacophony and Vieira's unapologetic productions become oddly exhilarating.
Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco beats and Punjabi folk melodies is a reissued gem. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an remarkably captivating combination of the synthetic sound of 1980s synthesisers and programmed drums with her ornate Indian classical vocal technique. Drum machine patterns echoes the rolling tones of the traditional drums, while synth lines doubles the classic sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, Latin-inflected grooves is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a up-tempo disco bass groove. It's a club-ready hybrid delivered over a decade before the Asian Underground explosion.
Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor
Mongolian singer Enji's gentle new release, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-influenced sound to deliver some of her most wide-ranging music yet. Moving away from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs range from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodies of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a sprightly, 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 is still intimate, pulling the listener into the warm soundscape of her distinctive voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow
Inspired by the 1960s legacy of Anatolian rock pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's third record alongside her group fuses the electric jangle of the electrified saz with woozy Mellotron and classic soul melodies. It's a retro-70s aesthetic grounded in Yıldırım's commanding falsetto and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape aesthetic. Yet, on classic Turkish songs such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group ventures into dynamic new territory. They create slinking, slow-burning grooves and lifting vocals that give a fresh, unconventional interpretation to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
Number Three: Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Gregorian chants, Eastern European folk melodies and symphonic arrangements merge on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary latest work. Arranging music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett traverse everything from the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated reggaeton-inspired beats of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim
