This Ten Greatest International Releases of 2025
Looking back on the musical landscape of international sounds that pushed boundaries. Presenting a selection of ten exceptional albums that characterized the year in music.
Number Ten: The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on cyclical drumming may not appear the easiest musical proposition. However, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar converts this driving beat into a hypnotically captivating piece. Directing an group of three drummers, Korwar creates a dense percussive dialect throughout the record's ten parts. The work channels the phasing techniques of Steve Reich combined with Indian classical phrasing, all anchored in the reiteration of a persistent, pulsing refrain. The longer one listens, this refrain evokes the trance-inducing cycles of devotional music, luring the listener deeper into Korwar's unique percussive universe.
9. The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Following an eight-year break, Arab singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a melancholy album of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-sung, dub-influenced sound that made her a staple in the Arab alternative scene since the nineties. Hamdan's vocal delivery is soft and thoughtful, delivering soft melodies over the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop groove of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a wavering, yearning vocal technique against electronic lines with North African flavors and rattling electronic percussion. The album's sound is sparse and subtle, yet this minimalism provides the perfect canvas for Hamdan's deeply felt songwriting to resonate. The album proves to be that justifies the wait.
8. Debit – Desaceleradas
Mexican producer Debit has a knack for eerie reinterpretations of historical sounds. For her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dubby version of the shuffling Latin American dance music genre. Debit drags this sound even further, processing its signature synths and off-beat rhythm via veils of murk and hiss to produce a novel, menacing beat. At turns atmospheric and discomfiting, Debit morphs the celebratory party music of cumbia into a enduring, ethereal memory.
Number Seven: The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Maximalism is the defining principle for the music of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira piles a tumult of alarms, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics over the enduring Brazilian genre of baile funk. This emulates the energetic sound of urban celebrations. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the intensity, throwing in everything from driving techno rhythms to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a especially frenetic and deafeningly intense forty-minute listening experience. Give in to the noise and Vieira's brash productions become oddly freeing.
6. The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco beats and Punjabi folk melodies is a reissued gem. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an remarkably captivating combination of the metallic sound of electronic keyboards and drum machines with her fluid classical Indian vocal technique. Electronic percussion echoes the wavelike tones of the tabla, while synth lines doubles the traditional sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Elsewhere, bossa nova rhythm takes center stage on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya boasts a fast-paced disco bass groove. It's a club-ready hybrid pioneered more than ten years before the Asian Underground explosion.
Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor
From Mongolia vocalist Enji's gentle latest record, Sonor, expands on her jazz-inflected sound to offer some of her most diverse music to date. Moving away from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs veer from the soft jazz-pop melodies of downtempo number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a energetic, funk-tinged cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Showcasing a full backing band rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains intimate, inviting the listener into the gentle acoustics of her distinctive voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – If There Is No Tomorrow
Channeling the 60s heritage of Anatolian rock established by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's third record with her band Grup Şimşek merges the electric jangle of the amplified traditional lute with drifting keyboard and soulful tunes. It's a nostalgic vibe grounded in Yıldırım's strong falsetto 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 ventures into dynamic new territory. They craft slinking, downtempo grooves and lifting vocals that give a novel, quirky spin to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Catholic requiem mass music, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements converge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary fourth album. 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 dramatic counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated dembow rhythms of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim
