This Ten Greatest International Records of 2025
Looking back on the musical landscape of worldwide music that pushed boundaries. Presenting a selection of ten remarkable albums that defined the year in music.
Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on repetitive percussion may not appear the most approachable listening experience. However, Indian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar converts this driving beat into a hypnotically captivating album. Guiding an group of three drummers, Korwar develops a dense percussive dialect throughout the record's 10 movements. The album draws from the phasing techniques of Steve Reich as well as traditional Indian musical phrasing, everything tethered in the repetition of a ongoing, driving motif. As the album progresses, this refrain evokes the trance-inducing cycles of ceremonial music, drawing the listener deeper into Korwar's distinctive percussive world.
9. The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Coming off an hiatus of eight years, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan returns with a mournful collection of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-language, dub-influenced sound that established her as a fixture in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is gentle and thoughtful, singing tender melodies over the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop groove of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a trembling, longing vibrato over electronic lines with North African flavors and clattering electronic percussion. The album's sound is sparse and understated, yet this minimalism creates the perfect environment for Hamdan's deeply felt songwriting to resonate. This is a record well worth the long anticipation.
8. Debit – Desaceleradas
Mexican electronic artist Debit has a knack for uncanny reimaginings of traditional music. For her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dubby interpretation of the shuffling Latin American musical style. Debit drags this sound down to a crawl, processing its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm via veils of distortion and hiss to create a fresh, menacing groove. At turns ambient and unsettling, Debit morphs the exuberant dancefloor sound of cumbia into a lasting, ethereal afterimage.
Number Seven: The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sheer intensity is the operative word for the output of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a onslaught of sirens, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the enduring Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This emulates the driving sound of favela street parties. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the energy, adding everything from techno kick drums to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a especially frenetic and overwhelmingly noisy forty-minute listening experience. Surrender to the cacophony and Vieira's bold productions become strangely exhilarating.
Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco music and Punjabi folk melodies is a rediscovered treasure. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an remarkably captivating combination of the synthetic sound of electronic keyboards and drum machines with her melismatic classical Indian singing style. Drum machine patterns mimics the wavelike tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody parallels the traditional sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, Latin-inflected grooves is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a up-tempo walking disco bassline. It's a club-ready hybrid pioneered over a decade before the rise of Asian Underground music.
Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor
From Mongolia vocalist Enji's soft latest record, Sonor, develops her jazz-influenced sound to present some of her most diverse music yet. Moving away from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks range from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodies of downtempo 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 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a live band rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay close, drawing the listener into the warm acoustics of her distinctive voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa
Inspired by the 60s heritage of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's new album alongside her group blends the electric jangle of the amplified traditional lute with drifting keyboard and classic soul melodies. It's a retro-70s aesthetic rooted in Yıldırım's powerful high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated sound. However, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group finds dynamic new territory. They craft sinuous, downtempo grooves and soaring vocals that impart a fresh, off-kilter spin to the Turkish psych sound.
3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Gregorian chants, Czech harpsichord folksong and orchestral strings all come together on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary fourth album. Arranging music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett explore everything from the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic dembow rhythms of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim
