The Ten Top International Albums of the Year 2025
Looking back on the musical landscape of worldwide releases that pushed boundaries. Presenting a selection of ten exceptional albums that shaped 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 repetitive percussion might not seem the most accessible listening experience. However, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar converts this insistent rhythm into a unexpectedly magnetic album. Directing an group of three drummers, Korwar crafts a complex percussive dialect across the record's ten parts. The album references minimalist concepts from Steve Reich alongside classical Indian rhythmic patterns, everything tethered in the recurrence of a continual, pulsing motif. The longer one listens, this refrain starts to mirror the trance-inducing cycles of ceremonial music, luring the listener deeper into Korwar's distinctive percussive universe.
Number Nine: The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
Coming off an long absence, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan returns with a mournful album of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-language, dub-tinged sound that cemented her status in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is gentle and ruminative, delivering delicate melodies over the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop beat of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a trembling, longing vibrato over electronic lines with North African flavors and skittering electronic percussion. The production is lean and subtle, yet this austerity offers the perfect canvas for Hamdan's emotive lyricism to take center stage. The album proves to be well worth the wait.
Number Eight: Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico electronic artist Debit excels at eerie reworkings of traditional music. On her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected interpretation of the shuffling Latin American dance music genre. Debit slows this sound to a near-halt, running its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm through layers of sludge and hiss to create a fresh, foreboding beat. Sometimes ambient and unsettling, Debit converts the exuberant party music of cumbia into a lasting, spectral echo.
7. The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sheer intensity is the operative word for the records of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira piles a onslaught of sirens, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics over the classic Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This recreates the driving sound of neighborhood block parties. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the ferocity, throwing in everything from four-on-the-floor techno beats to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly hyperactive and punishingly loud 40-minute listening experience. Surrender to the noise and Vieira's bold productions become oddly freeing.
Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a newly appreciated masterpiece. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an remarkably engaging combination of the metallic sound of early synthesizers and programmed drums with her melismatic classical Indian singing style. Drum machine patterns mirrors the wavelike tones of the tabla, while synthesiser melody replicates the traditional sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Elsewhere, bossa nova rhythm takes center stage on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a up-tempo disco bass groove. It's a club-ready hybrid delivered over a decade before the Asian Underground explosion.
Number Five: Enji – Resonance
From Mongolia vocalist Enji's delicate fourth album, Sonor, expands on her jazz-influenced sound to offer some of her most diverse music to date. Departing from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs travel from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodies 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. Utilizing 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 acoustics of her unique voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa
Inspired by the 1960s legacy of Anatolian rock established by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's new album alongside her group blends the metallic twang of the electrified saz with drifting Mellotron and classic soul melodies. It's a 1970s throwback sound anchored in Yıldırım's strong falsetto and shaped by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated aesthetic. Yet, on classic Turkish songs such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group finds vibrant new territory. They develop sinuous, downtempo grooves and lifting vocals that lend a fresh, off-kilter spin to the Turkish psych sound.
3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Gregorian chants, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings converge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's stunning fourth album. Arranging music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett traverse a vast range including the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated dembow rhythms of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim
