This Ten Best International Albums of 2025
Looking back on the musical landscape of global releases that defied expectations. Presenting a selection of ten exceptional albums that defined the year in music.
Number Ten: The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of insistent drumming might not seem the easiest listening experience. Yet, Indian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar converts this insistent rhythm into a unexpectedly magnetic album. Guiding an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar crafts a dense percussive language over the record's ten parts. The album references minimalist concepts from Steve Reich as well as Indian classical phrasing, everything tethered in the recurrence of a continual, thrumming figure. The longer one listens, this refrain begins to emulate the ceremonial rhythm of ritual music, luring the listener further into Korwar's unique percussive realm.
9. The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
Coming off an hiatus of eight years, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a contemplative set of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-language, dub-tinged sound that made her a staple in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is quiet and introspective, delivering tender melodies over the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop beat of Vows. During more energetic moments such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a quivering, longing vocal technique over electronic lines with North African flavors and rattling electronic percussion. The production is sparse and understated, yet this minimalism creates the perfect canvas for Hamdan's expressive lyricism to shine through. This is a record well worth the long anticipation.
8. The Mexican Producer Debit – Desaceleradas
From Mexico producer Debit specializes in eerie reinterpretations of archival audio. For her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected interpretation of the rhythmic Latin American dance music genre. Debit decelerates this sound to a near-halt, running its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm via layers of distortion and hiss to produce a new, foreboding rhythm. At turns atmospheric and unsettling, Debit transforms the celebratory dancefloor sound of cumbia into a enduring, ghostly echo.
Number Seven: DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sensory overload is the key term for the output of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira piles a tumult of alarms, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics on top of the enduring Brazilian genre of baile funk. This captures the driving sound of favela street parties. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the energy, adding everything from techno kick drums to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly hyperactive and deafeningly intense 40-minute sonic journey. Give in to the assault and Vieira's brash productions become unexpectedly liberating.
Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco beats and Punjabi folk melodies is a reissued treasure. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an unusually engaging combination of the metallic sound of early synthesizers and programmed drums with her melismatic Indian classical singing style. Drum machine patterns mimics the wavelike tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody replicates the classic sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. At other times, Latin-inflected grooves is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a fast-paced disco bass groove. It's a party blend delivered more than ten years before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance
From Mongolia singer Enji's delicate new release, Sonor, expands on her jazz-inflected sound to deliver some of her most wide-ranging music to date. Stepping outside her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs travel from the soft jazz-pop melodics of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a energetic, funk-inflected cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a ensemble rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay intimate, drawing the listener into the tender soundscape of her singular voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – If There Is No Tomorrow
Channeling the 1960s legacy of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's third record alongside her group blends the distinctive buzz of the electrified saz with dreamy keyboard and R&B-inflected lines. It's a 1970s throwback sound anchored in Yıldırım's powerful falsetto and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape aesthetic. Yet, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group reaches vibrant new territory. They craft sinuous, slow-burning grooves and powerful vocals that impart a fresh, off-kilter twist to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
Number Three: The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Sacred music, Czech harpsichord folksong and orchestral strings converge 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 liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic reggaeton-inspired beats of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim
