This 10 Best International Records of 2025
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the international music that expanded horizons. We explore ten remarkable albums that shaped the year in music.
Number Ten: The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on cyclical percussion might not seem the most accessible musical proposition. However, Indian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar turns this persistent pulse into a hypnotically captivating album. Guiding an group of three drummers, Korwar develops a intricate percussive dialect throughout the record's ten parts. The album channels Steve Reich's phasing motifs combined with Indian classical phrasing, all anchored in the recurrence of a persistent, thrumming figure. The longer one listens, this refrain starts to mirror the hypnotic repetition of devotional music, pulling the listener deeper into Korwar's distinctive percussive world.
Number Nine: The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Following an hiatus of eight years, Arab singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a melancholy album of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-language, dub-influenced sound that made her a staple in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is soft and ruminative, delivering delicate melodies atop the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop beat of Vows. During more energetic moments such as Shadia and Abyss, she adopts a quivering, yearning vibrato over electronic lines with North African flavors and skittering electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is lean and understated, yet this minimalism provides the ideal environment for Hamdan's expressive songwriting to resonate. The album proves to be that justifies the long anticipation.
Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico electronic artist Debit excels at eerie reworkings of archival audio. On her new album, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby version of the rhythmic Latin American dance music genre. Debit drags this sound even further, filtering its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm through layers of sludge and static to create a fresh, menacing rhythm. Periodically ambient and discomfiting, Debit morphs the exuberant dancefloor sound of cumbia into a persistent, spectral memory.
Number Seven: The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Maximalism is the operative word for the music of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a onslaught of sirens, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the longstanding Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This recreates the propulsive sound of urban celebrations. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the intensity, incorporating everything from four-on-the-floor techno beats to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly frenetic and punishingly loud 40-minute listening experience. Surrender to the assault and Vieira's brash productions become oddly exhilarating.
6. Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a rediscovered masterpiece. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an remarkably compelling fusion of the synthetic sound of 1980s synthesisers and programmed drums with her ornate classical Indian vocal technique. Electronic percussion echoes the wavelike tones of the tabla, while synthesiser melody parallels the traditional sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. At other times, bossa nova rhythm comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a up-tempo disco bass groove. It's a dancefloor fusion pioneered more than ten years before the Asian Underground explosion.
5. The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor
Mongolian vocalist Enji's gentle fourth album, Sonor, expands on her jazz-inflected sound to offer some of her most wide-ranging music yet. Departing from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks range from the gentle jazz-pop melodies of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a energetic, funk-inflected cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a full backing band rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay personal, drawing the listener into the tender soundscape of her singular voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – If There Is No Tomorrow
Channeling the psychedelic tradition of Turkish psychedelia established by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's new album with her band Grup Şimşek blends the metallic twang of the electrified saz with dreamy Mellotron and soulful tunes. It's a retro-70s aesthetic anchored in Yıldırım's commanding high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. However, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group ventures into lively new territory. They create smooth, slow-burning grooves and powerful vocals that impart a new, unconventional twist to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
Number Three: The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Gregorian chants, Eastern European folk melodies and symphonic arrangements all come together on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable fourth album. Arranging music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett traverse 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 reggaeton-inspired beats of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim
