Our Ten Most Outstanding International Releases of 2025
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the worldwide sounds that defied expectations. We explore ten notable albums that defined the year in music.
10. The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of insistent drumming may not appear the easiest listening experience. But, Indian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar turns this insistent rhythm into a hypnotically captivating album. Leading an group of three drummers, Korwar crafts a dense percussive dialect throughout the record's ten parts. The work draws from minimalist concepts from Steve Reich as well as traditional Indian musical phrasing, all anchored in the repetition of a continual, driving refrain. The longer one listens, this refrain starts to mirror the ceremonial rhythm of devotional music, luring the listener deeper into Korwar's singular percussive world.
9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
After an long absence, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a melancholy album of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-language, dub-tinged aesthetic that cemented her status in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is gentle and ruminative, delivering tender melodies over the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop beat of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she adopts a trembling, yearning vocal technique against Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and clattering electronic percussion. The production is sparse and restrained, yet this minimalism offers the ideal environment for Hamdan's emotive songwriting to take center stage. It is truly deserving of the long anticipation.
8. Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico electronic artist Debit has a knack for haunting reimaginings of historical sounds. For her new album, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dub-inflected interpretation of the shuffling Latin American musical style. Debit decelerates this sound down to a crawl, processing its signature synths and syncopated rhythm through veils of murk and hiss to produce a new, menacing rhythm. At turns atmospheric and discomfiting, Debit transforms the joyous party music of cumbia into a enduring, ethereal memory.
7. DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sensory overload is the key term for the output of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a cacophony of sirens, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics on top of the longstanding Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This captures the driving sound of urban celebrations. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the ferocity, throwing in everything from techno kick drums to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a especially frenetic and punishingly loud forty-minute sonic journey. Give in to the cacophony and Vieira's unapologetic productions become oddly liberating.
6. Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco music and Punjabi folk melodies is a reissued masterpiece. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an unusually captivating blend of the metallic sound of electronic keyboards and programmed drums with her ornate Indian classical singing style. Drum machine patterns echoes the undulating tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody parallels the traditional sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. At other times, Latin-inflected grooves is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a up-tempo funky bass rhythm. It's a dancefloor fusion pioneered over a decade before the Asian Underground explosion.
Number Five: Enji – Resonance
Mongolian singer Enji's soft latest record, Sonor, expands on her jazz-inflected sound to deliver some of her most diverse music so far. Moving away from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs range from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodics of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a energetic, funk-tinged cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a live band rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay personal, inviting the listener into the gentle soundscape of her singular voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow
Inspired by the 1960s legacy of Anatolian rock established by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work alongside her group fuses the distinctive buzz of the amplified traditional lute with dreamy Mellotron and classic soul melodies. It's a retro-70s aesthetic rooted in Yıldırım's strong high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. However, on Turkish standards such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group finds lively new territory. They craft sinuous, downtempo grooves and powerful vocals that impart a new, off-kilter spin to the Turkish psych sound.
3. Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Catholic requiem mass music, Czech harpsichord folksong and orchestral strings merge on Colombian 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 theatrical counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic reggaeton-inspired beats of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim
