Our Ten Greatest International Albums of 2025

As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the worldwide releases that defied expectations. Presenting a selection of ten notable albums that characterized the year in music.

Number Ten: The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty

An album consisting of a single, extended movement of cyclical drumming could sound like it isn't the easiest musical proposition. Yet, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar turns this insistent rhythm into a hypnotically captivating piece. Leading an group of three drummers, Korwar crafts a intricate percussive language across the record's ten parts. The work channels the phasing techniques of Steve Reich alongside Indian classical phrasing, each grounded in the recurrence of a ongoing, driving figure. The longer one listens, this refrain starts to mirror the ceremonial rhythm of devotional music, luring the listener deeper into Korwar's distinctive percussive realm.

Number Nine: The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember

After an eight-year break, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a mournful collection of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-sung, dub-tinged sound that established her as a fixture in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the nineties. Hamdan's vocal delivery is quiet and ruminative, delivering soft melodies atop the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop groove of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a wavering, yearning vibrato over Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and clattering electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is minimal and subtle, yet this minimalism provides the ideal canvas for Hamdan's expressive lyricism to take center stage. The album proves to be truly deserving of the long anticipation.

Number Eight: Debit – Slowed Down

Mexican electronic artist Debit specializes in eerie reworkings of historical sounds. For her new album, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby version of the shuffling Latin American dance music genre. Debit drags this sound even further, processing its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm via sheets of sludge and noise to generate a novel, foreboding groove. At turns ambient and discomfiting, Debit converts the celebratory dancefloor sound of cumbia into a persistent, ethereal afterimage.

7. DJ K – Radio Libertadora!

Sheer intensity is the operative word for the output of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a onslaught of sirens, explosive bass tones and shouted lyrics over the longstanding Brazilian genre of baile funk. This captures the driving sound of neighborhood block parties. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the energy, adding everything from techno kick drums to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly frenetic and deafeningly intense 40-minute sonic journey. Submit to the noise and Vieira's unapologetic productions become unexpectedly liberating.

6. Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi

Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco beats and traditional Punjabi tunes is a newly appreciated treasure. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an remarkably compelling combination of the sharp sound of 1980s synthesisers and programmed drums with her melismatic Indian classical singing style. Drum machine patterns mimics the rolling tones of the tabla, while synthesiser melody replicates the classic sound of the harmonium 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 channels a up-tempo walking disco bassline. It's a dancefloor fusion pioneered more than ten years before the rise of Asian Underground music.

Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance

From Mongolia vocalist Enji's delicate new release, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-influenced sound to present some of her most diverse music yet. Moving away from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks travel from the soft jazz-pop melodies of downtempo number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a sprightly, funk-tinged cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a live band rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains close, inviting the listener into the warm soundscape of her singular voice.

Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow

Drawing on the 1960s legacy 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 R&B-inflected lines. It's a nostalgic vibe anchored in Yıldırım's commanding high register and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. However, on classic Turkish songs such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group finds lively new territory. They create slinking, slow-burning grooves and powerful vocals that lend a fresh, quirky interpretation to the Turkish psych sound.

Number Three: Lido Pimienta – The Beauty

Catholic requiem mass music, Czech harpsichord folksong and orchestral strings merge 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 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 rhythmic reggaeton-inspired beats of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim