This Ten Finest International Records of 2025

Looking back on the musical landscape of international releases that expanded horizons. Here is a countdown of ten exceptional albums that defined the year in music.

10. Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already

An album consisting of a single, extended movement of cyclical percussion may not appear the most accessible listening experience. Yet, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar transforms this driving beat into a unexpectedly magnetic piece. Guiding an trio of three drummers, Korwar crafts a complex percussive language across the record's ten parts. His composition references minimalist concepts from Steve Reich alongside Indian classical phrasing, each grounded in the recurrence of a persistent, thrumming figure. Over its duration, this refrain evokes the trance-inducing cycles of devotional music, drawing the listener further into Korwar's unique percussive universe.

9. The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget

After an eight-year break, Arab singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a mournful collection of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-sung, dub-tinged aesthetic that established her as a fixture in the region's indie music scene since the nineties. Hamdan's vocal delivery is soft and thoughtful, delivering soft melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop beat of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a quivering, longing vibrato against Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and skittering electronic percussion. The production is lean and understated, yet this simplicity offers the ideal canvas for Hamdan's emotive compositions to resonate. The album proves to be truly deserving of the long anticipation.

8. Debit – Desaceleradas

From Mexico electronic artist Debit has a knack for uncanny reinterpretations of archival audio. For her latest release, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dub-inflected take of the shuffling Latin American dance music genre. Debit decelerates this sound even further, processing its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm through layers of sludge and hiss to generate a new, foreboding groove. Periodically atmospheric and uneasy, Debit morphs the celebratory party music of cumbia into a enduring, ethereal echo.

Number Seven: DJ K – Liberator Radio!

Sensory overload is the defining principle for the output of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a onslaught of sirens, explosive bass tones and shouted lyrics on top of the longstanding Brazilian genre of baile funk. This captures the driving sound of urban celebrations. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the ferocity, incorporating everything from four-on-the-floor techno beats to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a especially frenetic and punishingly loud forty-minute listening experience. Give in to the noise and Vieira's brash productions become oddly freeing.

Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco

Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a reissued gem. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an unusually captivating combination of the metallic sound of electronic keyboards and programmed drums with her ornate classical Indian singing style. Electronic percussion mirrors the rolling tones of the tabla, while synth lines replicates the classic sound of the reed organ 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 funky bass rhythm. It's a party blend pioneered over a decade before the rise of Asian Underground music.

5. The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor

From Mongolia singer Enji's soft fourth album, Sonor, expands on her jazz-influenced sound to present some of her most wide-ranging music so far. Departing from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks 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 standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still close, pulling the listener into the warm soundscape of her unique voice.

4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow

Channeling the 1960s legacy of Anatolian rock pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work with her band Grup Şimşek merges the electric jangle of the electrified saz with dreamy keyboard and classic soul melodies. It's a 1970s throwback sound rooted in Yıldırım's commanding high register and shaped 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 reaches lively new territory. They develop slinking, downtempo grooves and lifting vocals that impart a new, quirky twist to the Turkish psych sound.

3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza

Sacred music, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings merge on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary 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 theatrical interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated reggaeton-inspired beats of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim