The Ten Finest International Records of 2025
Looking back on the musical landscape of worldwide music that defied expectations. We explore ten remarkable albums that characterized the year in music.
Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of repetitive percussion could sound like it isn't the most accessible musical proposition. But, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar turns this insistent rhythm into a unexpectedly magnetic work. Leading an trio of three drummers, Korwar creates a intricate percussive dialect over the record's ten parts. The album references minimalist concepts from Steve Reich alongside Indian classical phrasing, all anchored in the repetition of a continual, thrumming refrain. Over its duration, this refrain starts to mirror the trance-inducing cycles of ceremonial music, pulling the listener deeper into Korwar's singular percussive realm.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Following an eight-year break, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a contemplative set of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-sung, dub-influenced aesthetic that cemented her status in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the nineties. Hamdan's voice is gentle and ruminative, singing soft melodies over the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop beat of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she adopts a trembling, yearning vibrato over electronic lines with North African flavors and clattering electronic percussion. The album's sound is minimal and restrained, yet this austerity provides the perfect setting for Hamdan's deeply felt lyricism to resonate. It is truly deserving of the long anticipation.
8. The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down
Mexican producer Debit excels at haunting reinterpretations of historical sounds. On her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dubby take of the shuffling Latin American dance music genre. Debit drags this sound even further, processing its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm through veils of distortion and static to create a fresh, sinister rhythm. Sometimes ambient and uneasy, Debit transforms the joyous party music of cumbia into a enduring, ghostly memory.
Number Seven: DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sensory overload is the operative word for the records of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira piles a tumult of sirens, explosive bass tones and shouted lyrics over the longstanding Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This recreates the propulsive sound of urban celebrations. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the energy, throwing in everything from driving techno rhythms to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a especially frenetic and deafeningly intense forty-minute sonic journey. Surrender to the assault and Vieira's unapologetic productions become oddly freeing.
Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco beats and traditional Punjabi tunes is a rediscovered treasure. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an strikingly engaging combination of the sharp sound of 1980s synthesisers and programmed drums with her ornate Indian classical singing style. Electronic percussion echoes the wavelike tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody doubles the traditional sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Elsewhere, Latin-inflected grooves is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya boasts a driving funky bass rhythm. It's a club-ready hybrid delivered more than ten years before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor
From Mongolia singer Enji's delicate fourth album, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-inflected sound to present some of her most wide-ranging music so far. Departing from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs veer from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodics of downtempo number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-inflected cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a full backing band rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still close, pulling the listener into the warm acoustics of her distinctive voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa
Inspired by the psychedelic tradition of Anatolian rock pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's new album with her band Grup Şimşek blends the metallic twang of the amplified traditional lute with woozy keyboard and classic soul melodies. It's a 1970s throwback sound grounded in Yıldırım's powerful falsetto and influenced by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated aesthetic. Yet, on Turkish standards such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group reaches dynamic new territory. They develop sinuous, downtempo grooves and lifting vocals that impart a fresh, off-kilter interpretation to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Gregorian chants, Eastern European folk melodies and symphonic arrangements all come together on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary latest work. Orchestrating music for the sixty-member 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 syncopated dembow rhythms of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim