Our Ten Best International Albums of the Year 2025
The past twelve months have offered a rich tapestry of international music that expanded horizons. Here is a countdown of ten remarkable albums that defined the year in music.
Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on repetitive percussion might not seem the easiest listening experience. But, Indian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar converts this persistent pulse into a unexpectedly magnetic piece. Leading an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar creates a intricate percussive dialect throughout the record's ten sections. The album channels minimalist concepts from Steve Reich as well as Indian classical phrasing, each grounded in the repetition of a persistent, driving motif. As the album progresses, this refrain begins to emulate the hypnotic repetition of ceremonial music, drawing the listener deeper into Korwar's singular percussive world.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
After an long absence, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan returns with a contemplative collection of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-language, dub-influenced aesthetic that made her a staple in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is soft 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 adopts a wavering, yearning vocal technique against Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and skittering electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is sparse and restrained, yet this simplicity creates the perfect setting for Hamdan's deeply felt compositions to take center stage. The album proves to be truly deserving of the long anticipation.
8. Debit – Desaceleradas
From Mexico electronic artist Debit specializes in eerie reimaginings of historical sounds. On her new album, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dubby version of the shuffling Latin American musical style. Debit drags this sound to a near-halt, processing its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm via layers of distortion and hiss to produce a fresh, sinister groove. Periodically atmospheric and discomfiting, Debit morphs the celebratory party music of cumbia into a enduring, ghostly echo.
Number Seven: The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Maximalism is the operative word for the records of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a cacophony of sirens, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics over the longstanding Brazilian genre of baile funk. This emulates the propulsive sound of neighborhood block parties. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the intensity, adding everything from four-on-the-floor techno beats to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a notably frenetic and deafeningly intense forty-minute sonic journey. Give in to the cacophony and Vieira's brash productions become unexpectedly freeing.
Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release of disco music and Punjabi folk melodies is a newly appreciated treasure. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an unusually captivating combination of the synthetic sound of electronic keyboards and programmed drums with her ornate classical Indian vocal technique. Drum machine patterns echoes the rolling tones of the tabla, while synthesiser melody parallels the traditional sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Elsewhere, Latin-inflected grooves comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a up-tempo funky bass rhythm. It's a club-ready hybrid pioneered more than ten years before the Asian Underground explosion.
Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance
From Mongolia singer Enji's delicate latest record, Sonor, develops her jazz-inflected sound to offer some of her most wide-ranging music to date. Departing from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs veer from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodics 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-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 intimate, inviting the listener into the warm acoustics of her singular voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – Yarın Yoksa
Drawing on the psychedelic tradition of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's third record alongside her group blends the distinctive buzz of the amplified traditional lute with dreamy Mellotron and classic soul melodies. It's a 1970s throwback sound anchored in Yıldırım's powerful high register and influenced by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated aesthetic. Yet, on classic Turkish songs such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group finds lively new territory. They craft smooth, downtempo grooves and powerful vocals that impart a novel, unconventional interpretation to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
Number Three: Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Sacred music, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings all come together on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable latest work. Orchestrating music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through everything from the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated reggaeton-inspired beats of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim
