Our 10 Best International Records of the Year 2025
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the worldwide releases that defied expectations. Here is a countdown of ten exceptional albums that defined the year in music.
Number Ten: The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of repetitive drumming could sound like it isn't the most approachable listening experience. But, Indian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar turns this driving beat into a hypnotically captivating album. Guiding an group of three drummers, Korwar develops a complex percussive dialect throughout the record's 10 movements. The album references Steve Reich's phasing motifs alongside classical Indian rhythmic patterns, all anchored in the recurrence of a ongoing, driving motif. As the album progresses, this refrain evokes the hypnotic repetition of ceremonial music, pulling the listener deeper into Korwar's singular percussive realm.
9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Coming off an long absence, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a mournful set of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-sung, dub-influenced style that made her a staple in the Arab alternative scene since the nineties. Hamdan's vocal delivery is soft and introspective, singing delicate melodies over the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop groove of Vows. During more energetic moments such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a trembling, yearning vocal technique against north African synth lines and rattling electronic percussion. The album's sound is lean and subtle, yet this austerity creates the ideal canvas for Hamdan's emotive lyricism to take center stage. The album proves to be that justifies the wait.
8. Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico electronic artist Debit has a knack for uncanny reinterpretations of historical sounds. For her latest release, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dubby interpretation of the shuffling Latin American musical style. Debit slows this sound to a near-halt, processing its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm through sheets of distortion and hiss to create a novel, menacing beat. At turns atmospheric and uneasy, Debit converts the celebratory dancefloor sound of cumbia into a lasting, ghostly echo.
7. The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sensory overload is the key term for the music of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira piles a tumult of sirens, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics over the longstanding Brazilian genre of baile funk. This captures the energetic sound of favela street parties. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the intensity, adding everything from techno kick drums to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a notably frenetic and deafeningly intense forty-minute sonic journey. Give in to the noise and Vieira's brash productions become strangely exhilarating.
6. 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 gem. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an unusually engaging blend of the synthetic sound of electronic keyboards and drum machines with her fluid classical Indian singing style. Drum machine patterns echoes the rolling tones of the tabla, while synth lines parallels 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 fast-paced disco bass groove. It's a dancefloor fusion created more than ten years before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
5. Enji – Sonor
Mongolian vocalist Enji's gentle latest record, Sonor, develops her jazz-influenced sound to offer some of her broadest music so far. Stepping outside her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks travel from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodics of downtempo 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 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Showcasing a full backing band rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains intimate, drawing the listener into the gentle 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, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's third record with her band Grup Şimşek blends the electric jangle of the amplified traditional lute with woozy Mellotron and R&B-inflected lines. It's a 1970s throwback sound anchored in Yıldırım's commanding high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated aesthetic. Yet, on classic Turkish songs such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group reaches lively new territory. They develop smooth, downtempo grooves and powerful vocals that lend a novel, quirky twist to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Catholic requiem mass music, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements merge on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable fourth album. Arranging music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett explore a vast range including the liturgical vocals 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
