Our 10 Top International Albums of the Year 2025
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the global sounds that expanded horizons. We explore ten remarkable albums that characterized the year in music.
Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of repetitive percussion may not appear the easiest musical proposition. But, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar transforms this driving beat into a hypnotically captivating album. Directing an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar crafts a complex percussive language across the record's 10 movements. The work draws from Steve Reich's phasing motifs combined with classical Indian rhythmic patterns, each grounded in the reiteration of a continual, pulsing figure. The longer one listens, this refrain starts to mirror the hypnotic repetition of ritual music, luring the listener deeper into Korwar's distinctive percussive realm.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
Following an long absence, Lebanese vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a mournful album of songs. She expands on the Arabic-language, dub-tinged style that made her a staple in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is quiet and thoughtful, singing soft melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop beat of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a quivering, yearning vibrato over north African synth lines and skittering electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is sparse and understated, yet this simplicity provides the ideal environment for Hamdan's emotive lyricism to shine through. The album proves to be truly deserving of the wait.
Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down
Mexican electronic artist Debit has a knack for haunting reworkings of historical sounds. On her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dubby take of the rhythmic Latin American musical style. Debit decelerates this sound down to a crawl, processing its signature synths and off-beat rhythm through veils of murk and noise to generate a fresh, menacing groove. Periodically ambient and unsettling, Debit converts the exuberant dancefloor sound of cumbia into a enduring, ethereal memory.
Number Seven: The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sensory overload is the operative word for the music of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a cacophony of alarms, explosive bass tones and shouted lyrics on top of the longstanding Brazilian genre of baile funk. This emulates the propulsive sound of neighborhood block parties. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the energy, adding everything from driving techno rhythms to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly manic and overwhelmingly noisy forty-minute listening experience. Give in to the cacophony and Vieira's bold productions become unexpectedly exhilarating.
6. The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco beats and traditional Punjabi tunes is a rediscovered gem. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an strikingly compelling combination of the sharp sound of electronic keyboards and programmed drums with her ornate Indian classical vocal technique. Electronic percussion mimics the undulating tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody doubles the traditional sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Elsewhere, Latin-inflected grooves takes center stage on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a driving funky bass rhythm. It's a dancefloor fusion pioneered over a decade before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
5. Enji – Sonor
From Mongolia singer Enji's soft latest record, Sonor, expands on her jazz-inflected sound to offer some of her most diverse music yet. Stepping outside her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs veer from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodies of downtempo number Ulbar to the German spoken-word 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 live band rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay close, pulling the listener into the gentle soundscape of her unique voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – Yarın Yoksa
Channeling the 60s heritage of Anatolian rock pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's third record alongside her group blends the electric jangle of the electrified saz with drifting keyboard and soulful tunes. It's a nostalgic vibe anchored in Yıldırım's strong high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated sound. Yet, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group finds vibrant new territory. They create sinuous, slow-burning grooves and soaring vocals that impart a fresh, quirky interpretation to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
Number Three: The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Gregorian chants, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements merge on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable fourth album. Orchestrating 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 counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic reggaeton-inspired beats of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim
