Our 10 Finest International Releases of the Year 2025
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the global sounds that defied expectations. We explore ten notable albums that shaped the year in music.
Number Ten: The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty
The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on cyclical percussion may not appear the most accessible musical proposition. Yet, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar turns this driving beat into a unexpectedly magnetic piece. Leading an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar crafts a complex percussive dialect over the record's ten parts. His composition draws from Steve Reich's phasing motifs as well as Indian classical phrasing, each grounded in the repetition of a continual, driving refrain. Over its duration, this refrain starts to mirror the hypnotic repetition of ritual music, drawing the listener further into Korwar's singular percussive world.
9. The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Coming off an hiatus of eight years, Arab singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan returns with a contemplative set of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-language, dub-tinged style that established her as a fixture in the Arab alternative scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is soft and thoughtful, singing soft melodies atop the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rolling trip-hop beat of Vows. On livelier tracks such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a quivering, longing vibrato against electronic lines with North African flavors and skittering electronic percussion. The album's sound is sparse and restrained, yet this minimalism offers the ideal setting for Hamdan's expressive lyricism to take center stage. The album proves to be truly deserving of the wait.
8. The Mexican Producer Debit – Desaceleradas
Mexican producer Debit has a knack for eerie reinterpretations of traditional music. For her new album, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected interpretation of the shuffling Latin American dance music genre. Debit drags this sound even further, processing its signature synths and syncopated rhythm through veils of distortion and static to create a new, sinister groove. At turns ambient and discomfiting, Debit converts the exuberant dancefloor sound of cumbia into a enduring, spectral echo.
Number Seven: The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sheer intensity is the defining principle for the music of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Inventing his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a onslaught of alarms, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics on top of the enduring Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This captures the energetic sound of favela street parties. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the energy, adding everything from driving techno rhythms to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly hyperactive and deafeningly intense 40-minute sonic journey. Submit 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 beats and Punjabi folk melodies is a newly appreciated treasure. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an unusually captivating combination of the synthetic sound of early synthesizers and drum machines with her ornate Indian classical vocal technique. Electronic percussion mimics the wavelike tones of the tabla, while synth lines parallels the traditional sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, bossa nova rhythm comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya boasts a up-tempo disco bass groove. It's a party blend created more than ten years before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.
5. Enji – Resonance
From Mongolia singer Enji's gentle fourth album, Sonor, expands on her jazz-influenced sound to present some of her most diverse music to date. Stepping outside her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces range from the soft jazz-pop melodics of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-tinged cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Showcasing a ensemble rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay intimate, drawing the listener into the warm acoustics of her unique voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow
Inspired by the 60s heritage of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's new album with her band Grup Şimşek merges the metallic twang of the amplified traditional lute with woozy keyboard and classic soul melodies. It's a nostalgic vibe rooted in Yıldırım's commanding high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. However, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group finds lively new territory. They craft slinking, downtempo grooves and powerful vocals that give a novel, quirky spin to the Turkish psych sound.
Number Three: Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Sacred music, Eastern European folk melodies and symphonic arrangements converge on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary fourth album. Orchestrating music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett traverse 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 syncopated dembow rhythms of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim
