This 10 Best International Albums of 2025
Looking back on the musical landscape of global sounds that pushed boundaries. Presenting a selection of ten remarkable albums that defined the year in music.
10. Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of cyclical drumming could sound like it isn't the most accessible musical proposition. However, Indian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar converts this insistent rhythm into a hypnotically captivating work. Guiding an group of three drummers, Korwar crafts a dense percussive dialect over the record's ten sections. The album draws from Steve Reich's phasing motifs as well as Indian classical phrasing, all anchored in the reiteration of a persistent, pulsing refrain. As the album progresses, this refrain starts to mirror the hypnotic repetition of ritual music, pulling the listener further into Korwar's singular percussive world.
9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Following an hiatus of eight years, Lebanese vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a melancholy collection of songs. She expands on the Arabic-language, dub-tinged sound that cemented her status in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is quiet and introspective, singing delicate melodies over the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop beat of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a wavering, longing vibrato against north African synth lines and skittering electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is lean and understated, yet this simplicity creates the perfect canvas for Hamdan's emotive compositions to shine through. This is a record truly deserving of the wait.
Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Desaceleradas
From Mexico electronic artist Debit excels at haunting reinterpretations of archival audio. For her latest release, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected interpretation of the shuffling Latin American dance music genre. Debit slows this sound even further, filtering its signature synths and syncopated rhythm through layers of murk and noise to produce a novel, menacing groove. At turns ambient and discomfiting, Debit transforms the joyous dancefloor sound of cumbia into a enduring, ethereal memory.
7. The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sheer intensity is the operative word for the music of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira piles a tumult of alarms, explosive bass tones and shouted lyrics on top of the enduring Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This emulates the energetic sound of neighborhood block parties. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the energy, adding everything from driving techno rhythms to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly manic and deafeningly intense forty-minute listening experience. Give in to the cacophony and Vieira's bold productions become unexpectedly exhilarating.
Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a rediscovered masterpiece. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an unusually captivating blend of the sharp sound of early synthesizers and drum machines with her ornate classical Indian singing style. Drum machine patterns mimics the wavelike tones of the tabla, while synthesiser melody parallels the traditional sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. At other times, Latin-inflected grooves comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a up-tempo walking disco bassline. It's a dancefloor fusion pioneered more than ten years before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance
From Mongolia singer Enji's delicate fourth album, Sonor, develops her jazz-influenced sound to present some of her most diverse music to date. Departing from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces veer from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodies of downtempo number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a energetic, funk-inflected cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a ensemble rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still close, pulling the listener into the gentle acoustics of her unique voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow
Inspired by the psychedelic tradition of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's new album with her band Grup Şimşek blends the distinctive buzz of the amplified traditional lute with dreamy keyboard and classic soul melodies. It's a 1970s throwback sound anchored in Yıldırım's powerful high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated sound. Yet, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group finds dynamic new territory. They create smooth, downtempo grooves and lifting vocals that impart a novel, unconventional twist to the Turkish psych sound.
Number Three: Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Catholic requiem mass music, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings all come together on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's stunning latest work. Orchestrating music for the sixty-member 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 theatrical counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated dembow rhythms of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim
