The Ten Finest International Records of 2025
The past twelve months have offered a rich tapestry of worldwide sounds that expanded horizons. Here is a countdown of ten exceptional albums that shaped the year in music.
Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
A continuous, 40-minute suite of insistent percussion could sound like it isn't the most accessible listening experience. However, Indian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar converts this persistent pulse into a strangely alluring album. Leading an group of three drummers, Korwar creates a complex percussive vocabulary over the record's ten parts. The work references Steve Reich's phasing motifs as well as classical Indian rhythmic patterns, each grounded in the repetition of a continual, thrumming refrain. The longer one listens, this refrain evokes the ceremonial rhythm of ritual music, luring the listener further into Korwar's singular percussive world.
Number Nine: The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
After an hiatus of eight years, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a mournful collection of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-language, dub-tinged sound that made her a staple in the Arab alternative scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is gentle and introspective, delivering soft melodies over the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rolling trip-hop groove of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a wavering, longing vocal technique against north African synth lines and clattering electronic percussion. The album's sound is minimal and understated, yet this minimalism creates the perfect canvas for Hamdan's expressive lyricism to shine through. This is a record well worth the wait.
8. Debit – Slowed Down
Mexican producer Debit excels at eerie reimaginings of archival audio. For her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby interpretation of the shuffling Latin American dance music genre. Debit decelerates this sound even further, running its signature synths and off-beat rhythm through veils of distortion and hiss to generate a new, foreboding groove. Periodically ambient and unsettling, Debit transforms the joyous party music of cumbia into a lasting, ghostly echo.
Number Seven: DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sheer intensity is the operative word for the records of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a tumult of alarms, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the longstanding Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This captures the energetic sound of favela street parties. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the energy, incorporating everything from driving techno rhythms to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a especially hyperactive and punishingly loud forty-minute listening experience. Submit to the cacophony and Vieira's bold productions become oddly freeing.
6. Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a rediscovered masterpiece. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an remarkably engaging blend of the synthetic sound of early synthesizers and programmed drums with her fluid Indian classical vocal technique. Drum machine patterns mimics the undulating tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody parallels the traditional sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Elsewhere, bossa nova rhythm is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a fast-paced disco bass groove. It's a party blend delivered more than ten years before the Asian Underground explosion.
Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance
Mongolian singer Enji's gentle new release, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-influenced sound to present some of her most diverse music so far. Departing from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks range from the gentle jazz-pop melodics of downtempo number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-inflected cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a live band rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains intimate, inviting the listener into the warm acoustics of her distinctive voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa
Drawing on the psychedelic tradition of Turkish psychedelia established 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 Mellotron and R&B-inflected lines. It's a retro-70s aesthetic anchored in Yıldırım's powerful high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape aesthetic. However, on Turkish standards such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group finds dynamic new territory. They craft sinuous, slow-burning grooves and lifting vocals that lend a fresh, quirky interpretation to the Turkish psych sound.
Number Three: Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Sacred music, Czech harpsichord folksong 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 counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated dembow rhythms of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim