This Ten Most Outstanding International Albums of 2025
Looking back on the musical landscape of international releases that pushed boundaries. We explore ten remarkable albums that defined the year in music.
Number Ten: The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on insistent percussion could sound like it isn't the most accessible listening experience. However, Indian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar turns this insistent rhythm into a strangely alluring album. Directing an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar crafts a dense percussive dialect over the record's 10 movements. The album draws from Steve Reich's phasing motifs combined with traditional Indian musical phrasing, all anchored in the recurrence of a ongoing, thrumming motif. Over its duration, this refrain evokes the ceremonial rhythm of devotional music, luring the listener deeper into Korwar's distinctive percussive realm.
9. The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
Coming off an hiatus of eight years, Lebanese vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a mournful set of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-sung, dub-tinged aesthetic that made her a staple in the Arab alternative scene since the nineties. Hamdan's voice is quiet and introspective, singing soft melodies over the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop groove of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a trembling, longing vibrato against electronic lines with North African flavors and clattering electronic percussion. The album's sound is sparse and subtle, yet this austerity provides the perfect canvas for Hamdan's expressive compositions to take center stage. This is a record well worth the wait.
8. The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico producer Debit has a knack for haunting reworkings of archival audio. For her new album, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby take of the rhythmic Latin American musical style. Debit decelerates this sound to a near-halt, processing its signature synths and off-beat rhythm through layers of murk and hiss to generate a novel, foreboding groove. Periodically atmospheric and unsettling, Debit transforms the celebratory party music of cumbia into a lasting, spectral afterimage.
Number Seven: DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sensory overload is the defining principle for the output of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a tumult of alarms, explosive bass tones and screamed lyrics over the classic Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This emulates the propulsive sound of favela street parties. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the intensity, adding everything from techno kick drums to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a especially hyperactive and punishingly loud 40-minute listening experience. Submit to the cacophony and Vieira's brash productions become oddly freeing.
6. The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco beats and Punjabi folk melodies is a newly appreciated masterpiece. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an strikingly compelling combination of the sharp sound of 1980s synthesisers and programmed drums with her fluid Indian classical vocal technique. Drum machine patterns mirrors the undulating tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody doubles 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 driving walking disco bassline. It's a party blend created more than ten years before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor
Mongolian singer Enji's delicate fourth album, Sonor, develops her jazz-influenced sound to deliver some of her most wide-ranging music so far. Moving away from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces veer from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodies of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a sprightly, funk-tinged cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Showcasing a ensemble rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains personal, pulling the listener into the tender acoustics of her distinctive voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa
Drawing on the psychedelic tradition of Anatolian rock established by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's third record with her band Grup Şimşek blends the metallic twang of the electrified saz with drifting Mellotron and classic soul melodies. It's a nostalgic vibe grounded in Yıldırım's commanding high register and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape aesthetic. Yet, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group reaches dynamic new territory. They develop sinuous, slow-burning grooves and powerful vocals that impart a novel, quirky interpretation to the Turkish psych sound.
3. Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Gregorian chants, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings all come together on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary fourth album. Arranging music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through a vast range including the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated reggaeton-inspired beats of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim
