Our Ten Greatest International Releases of 2025
The past twelve months have offered a rich tapestry of worldwide music that expanded horizons. We explore ten remarkable albums that defined the year in music.
Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on repetitive drumming may not appear the most approachable musical proposition. But, Indian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar transforms this insistent rhythm into a strangely alluring album. Guiding an trio of three drummers, Korwar crafts a complex percussive language across the record's ten sections. His composition draws from Steve Reich's phasing motifs combined with Indian classical phrasing, all anchored in the repetition of a persistent, thrumming motif. As the album progresses, this refrain starts to mirror the hypnotic repetition of devotional music, pulling the listener further into Korwar's unique percussive world.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Following an hiatus of eight years, Lebanese vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a melancholy collection of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-language, dub-tinged style that made her a staple in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the nineties. Hamdan's vocal delivery is gentle and ruminative, delivering soft melodies over the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop groove of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a wavering, yearning vocal technique over north African synth lines and skittering electronic percussion. The production is sparse and subtle, yet this minimalism creates the perfect setting for Hamdan's deeply felt lyricism to resonate. It is truly deserving of the long anticipation.
Number Eight: Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico producer Debit excels at uncanny reworkings of archival audio. On her new album, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby take of the shuffling Latin American dance music genre. Debit decelerates this sound even further, processing its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm through veils of murk and noise to generate a new, menacing rhythm. At turns ambient and unsettling, Debit converts the joyous dancefloor sound of cumbia into a lasting, spectral afterimage.
7. DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sensory overload is the operative word for the output of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a tumult of sirens, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics on top of the longstanding Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This emulates the energetic sound of urban celebrations. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the ferocity, throwing in everything from techno kick drums to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a especially frenetic and deafeningly intense 40-minute sonic journey. Submit to the cacophony and Vieira's brash productions become unexpectedly exhilarating.
Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a reissued gem. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an strikingly engaging blend of the metallic sound of electronic keyboards and drum machines with her melismatic Indian classical vocal technique. Drum machine patterns mirrors the undulating tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody replicates the classic sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. At other times, 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 global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
5. The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance
From Mongolia singer Enji's gentle new release, Sonor, develops her jazz-inflected sound to offer some of her broadest music so far. Moving away from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces travel from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodics of downtempo number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-inflected cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a live band rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still intimate, pulling the listener into the gentle soundscape of her singular voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa
Channeling the 1960s legacy of Anatolian rock pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work alongside her group merges the electric jangle of the amplified traditional lute with drifting keyboard and R&B-inflected lines. It's a 1970s throwback sound rooted in Yıldırım's strong high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated sound. However, on Turkish standards such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group ventures into vibrant new territory. They create slinking, downtempo grooves and powerful vocals that impart a new, unconventional interpretation to the Turkish psych sound.
3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Catholic requiem mass music, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings merge on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's stunning latest work. Orchestrating music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett traverse everything from the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic dembow rhythms of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim
