The 10 Most Outstanding International Records of the Year 2025
Looking back on the musical landscape of international releases that pushed boundaries. Here is a countdown of ten remarkable albums that characterized the year in music.
Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of insistent drumming might not seem the most accessible musical proposition. But, Indian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar converts this insistent rhythm into a unexpectedly magnetic piece. Directing an trio of three drummers, Korwar develops a complex percussive dialect throughout the record's 10 movements. The work references Steve Reich's phasing motifs as well as traditional Indian musical phrasing, each grounded in the reiteration of a persistent, pulsing figure. Over its duration, this refrain evokes the hypnotic repetition of ceremonial music, pulling the listener further into Korwar's unique percussive realm.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Following an long absence, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan returns with a melancholy collection of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-sung, dub-influenced style that cemented her status in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the nineties. Hamdan's vocal delivery is gentle and introspective, singing soft 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 adopts a trembling, yearning vibrato against north African synth lines and rattling electronic percussion. The production is minimal and subtle, yet this simplicity offers the ideal environment for Hamdan's emotive compositions to shine through. The album proves to be truly deserving of the long anticipation.
8. Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico producer Debit has a knack for eerie reworkings of traditional music. For her new album, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected take of the rhythmic Latin American musical style. Debit drags this sound to a near-halt, running its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm through layers of distortion and noise to produce a new, menacing rhythm. Sometimes ambient and uneasy, Debit transforms the joyous party music of cumbia into a enduring, ghostly memory.
7. The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sensory overload is the defining principle for the music of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a tumult of sirens, explosive bass tones and shouted lyrics over the enduring Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This emulates the propulsive sound of urban celebrations. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the energy, adding everything from four-on-the-floor techno beats to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly manic and deafeningly intense forty-minute listening experience. Surrender to the noise and Vieira's unapologetic productions become strangely liberating.
Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco music and Punjabi folk melodies is a newly appreciated masterpiece. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an remarkably captivating fusion of the synthetic sound of electronic keyboards and drum machines with her melismatic Indian classical vocal technique. Electronic percussion echoes the undulating tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody doubles the classic sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, Latin-inflected grooves takes center stage on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya boasts a up-tempo disco bass groove. It's a dancefloor fusion delivered over a decade before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
5. The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor
From Mongolia vocalist Enji's gentle new release, Sonor, expands on her jazz-inflected sound to deliver some of her broadest music so far. Stepping outside her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces travel from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodics of slow-burning 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 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a live band rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay close, pulling the listener into the warm soundscape of her singular voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – If There Is No Tomorrow
Channeling the 1960s legacy of Anatolian rock pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's new album alongside her group merges the metallic twang of the amplified traditional lute with dreamy Mellotron and soulful tunes. It's a retro-70s aesthetic grounded in Yıldırım's powerful high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated sound. Yet, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group finds dynamic new territory. They create slinking, slow-burning grooves and soaring vocals that impart a fresh, quirky spin to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Catholic requiem mass music, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements all come together on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary latest work. Arranging music for the 60-piece 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 dramatic interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic dembow rhythms of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim