The 10 Top International Records of 2025
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the worldwide releases that defied expectations. We explore ten remarkable albums that defined the year in music.
10. Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of cyclical percussion may not appear the easiest listening experience. However, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar converts this driving beat into a unexpectedly magnetic piece. Leading an group of three drummers, Korwar crafts a complex percussive dialect over the record's ten parts. The album channels minimalist concepts from Steve Reich as well as traditional Indian musical phrasing, all anchored in the repetition of a persistent, thrumming refrain. As the album progresses, this refrain begins to emulate the trance-inducing cycles of ritual music, pulling the listener deeper into Korwar's singular percussive realm.
9. The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
Following an hiatus of eight years, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a melancholy set of songs. She expands on the Arabic-sung, dub-influenced aesthetic that made her a staple in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is gentle and thoughtful, delivering delicate melodies atop the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop beat of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a quivering, yearning vibrato against north African synth lines and rattling electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is sparse and subtle, yet this minimalism offers the perfect environment for Hamdan's emotive songwriting to take center stage. This is a record that justifies the long anticipation.
8. The Mexican Producer Debit – Desaceleradas
From Mexico producer Debit specializes in uncanny reworkings of traditional music. For her new album, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dubby interpretation of the shuffling Latin American dance genre. Debit decelerates this sound down to a crawl, running its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm via layers of murk and hiss to create a novel, menacing rhythm. Sometimes atmospheric and unsettling, Debit transforms the joyous dancefloor sound of cumbia into a enduring, spectral memory.
Number Seven: DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Maximalism is the operative word for the records of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a tumult of alarms, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the classic Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This recreates the driving sound of favela street parties. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the energy, adding everything from four-on-the-floor techno beats to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a especially manic and deafeningly intense forty-minute sonic journey. Give in to the cacophony and Vieira's brash productions become strangely liberating.
Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco beats and Punjabi folk melodies is a rediscovered masterpiece. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an unusually engaging combination of the sharp sound of 1980s synthesisers and drum machines with her fluid Indian classical vocal technique. Drum machine patterns mirrors the undulating tones of the tabla, while synth lines doubles the classic 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 driving funky bass rhythm. It's a club-ready hybrid created more than ten years before the rise of Asian Underground music.
5. The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance
Mongolian singer Enji's soft fourth album, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-influenced sound to deliver some of her broadest music yet. Stepping outside her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces range from the soft jazz-pop melodics of downtempo number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a energetic, funk-inflected cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a full backing band rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains personal, pulling the listener into the tender acoustics of her singular voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – If There Is No Tomorrow
Channeling the psychedelic tradition of Anatolian rock pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work with her band Grup Şimşek blends the distinctive buzz of the electrified saz with woozy keyboard and soulful tunes. It's a 1970s throwback sound grounded in Yıldırım's strong high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. Yet, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group reaches lively new territory. They craft sinuous, slow-burning grooves and soaring vocals that impart a fresh, quirky twist to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
Number Three: Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Sacred music, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings converge on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable latest work. Orchestrating music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett traverse everything from the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated dembow rhythms of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim
