The Ten Greatest International Albums of the Year 2025
The past twelve months have offered a rich tapestry of worldwide releases that pushed boundaries. Presenting a selection of ten notable albums that characterized the year in music.
Number Ten: The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on cyclical percussion might not seem the most accessible listening experience. However, Indian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar transforms this driving beat into a hypnotically captivating piece. Directing an group of three drummers, Korwar develops a intricate percussive vocabulary across the record's ten sections. The album references the phasing techniques of Steve Reich combined with Indian classical phrasing, everything tethered in the reiteration of a persistent, pulsing refrain. The longer one listens, this refrain starts to mirror the hypnotic repetition of ritual music, pulling the listener deeper into Korwar's singular percussive world.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
After an hiatus of eight years, Lebanese vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan returns with a contemplative album of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-sung, dub-influenced aesthetic that established her as a fixture in the Arab alternative scene since the nineties. Hamdan's voice is gentle and thoughtful, singing delicate melodies atop the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop groove of Vows. During more energetic moments such as Shadia and Abyss, she adopts a quivering, yearning vibrato against Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and clattering electronic percussion. The production is sparse and restrained, yet this minimalism provides the ideal environment for Hamdan's emotive songwriting to take center stage. The album proves to be truly deserving of the long anticipation.
Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down
Mexican electronic artist Debit has a knack for uncanny reinterpretations of historical sounds. For her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby interpretation of the rhythmic Latin American dance music genre. Debit decelerates this sound down to a crawl, running its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm through veils of sludge and static to generate a novel, sinister beat. Sometimes ambient and unsettling, Debit transforms the celebratory party music of cumbia into a lasting, spectral afterimage.
Number Seven: DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sensory overload is the key term for the records of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira piles a onslaught of alarms, explosive bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the enduring Brazilian genre of baile funk. This captures the driving sound of favela street parties. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the energy, incorporating everything from driving techno rhythms to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a especially hyperactive and punishingly loud forty-minute listening experience. Give in to the assault and Vieira's unapologetic productions become oddly exhilarating.
Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco beats and traditional Punjabi tunes is a newly appreciated treasure. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an remarkably captivating blend of the sharp sound of 1980s synthesisers and drum machines with her ornate Indian classical singing style. Drum machine patterns echoes the undulating tones of the tabla, while synth lines replicates the classic sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, bossa nova rhythm comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a driving walking disco bassline. It's a party blend pioneered over a decade before the rise of Asian Underground music.
5. Enji – Sonor
Mongolian vocalist Enji's delicate fourth album, Sonor, expands on her jazz-inflected sound to present some of her broadest music yet. Departing from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs veer from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodies of slow-burning 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 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a full backing band rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still personal, drawing the listener into the tender acoustics of her unique voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – Yarın Yoksa
Channeling the psychedelic tradition of Anatolian rock established by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's third record alongside her group fuses the metallic twang of the electrified saz with dreamy Mellotron and classic soul melodies. It's a retro-70s aesthetic anchored in Yıldırım's commanding high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated sound. However, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group finds lively new territory. They craft sinuous, slow-burning grooves and lifting vocals that lend a new, quirky spin to the Turkish psych sound.
3. Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Sacred music, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements converge on Colombian-born 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 theatrical counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic dembow rhythms of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim
