The Ten Greatest International Records of the Year 2025
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the worldwide music that expanded horizons. We explore ten remarkable 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 repetitive drumming may not appear the most accessible listening experience. However, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar transforms this persistent pulse into a hypnotically captivating album. Guiding an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar develops a intricate percussive dialect across the record's 10 movements. The work references minimalist concepts from Steve Reich alongside traditional Indian musical phrasing, everything tethered in the reiteration of a ongoing, pulsing motif. Over its duration, this refrain evokes the trance-inducing cycles of devotional music, drawing the listener deeper into Korwar's unique percussive universe.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Coming off an eight-year break, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a contemplative collection of songs. She expands on the Arabic-language, dub-tinged sound that cemented her status in the Arab alternative scene since the nineties. Hamdan's voice is gentle and introspective, delivering delicate melodies over the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rolling trip-hop beat of Vows. During more energetic moments such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a trembling, longing vibrato against electronic lines with North African flavors and rattling electronic percussion. The production is sparse and subtle, yet this austerity offers the perfect setting for Hamdan's emotive compositions to take center stage. This is a record well worth the long anticipation.
8. The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down
Mexican producer Debit excels at eerie reworkings of historical sounds. On her latest release, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dubby interpretation of the shuffling Latin American musical style. Debit slows this sound even further, processing its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm through veils of murk and static to produce a fresh, foreboding rhythm. Sometimes atmospheric and discomfiting, Debit converts the joyous dancefloor sound of cumbia into a lasting, ethereal afterimage.
7. DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Sheer intensity is the operative word for the records of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a tumult of alarms, explosive bass tones and screamed lyrics over the classic Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This recreates the energetic sound of favela street parties. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the energy, incorporating everything from driving techno rhythms to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly frenetic and overwhelmingly noisy forty-minute listening experience. Surrender to the noise and Vieira's unapologetic productions become strangely freeing.
6. The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco music and Punjabi folk melodies is a newly appreciated treasure. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an strikingly engaging fusion of the synthetic sound of electronic keyboards and drum machines with her melismatic classical Indian singing style. Drum machine patterns mirrors the undulating tones of the traditional drums, while synth lines parallels the classic 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 boasts a up-tempo walking disco bassline. It's a club-ready hybrid created over a decade before the Asian Underground explosion.
Number Five: Enji – Resonance
From Mongolia vocalist Enji's delicate fourth album, Sonor, develops her jazz-influenced sound to offer some of her most diverse music yet. Stepping outside her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks veer from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodies of downtempo number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a sprightly, funk-inflected cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Showcasing a live band rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay intimate, inviting the listener into the tender acoustics 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, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's new album alongside her group fuses the distinctive buzz of the amplified traditional lute with drifting Mellotron and R&B-inflected lines. It's a nostalgic vibe rooted in Yıldırım's strong high register and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. Yet, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group ventures into vibrant new territory. They create sinuous, downtempo grooves and powerful vocals that lend a novel, quirky interpretation to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
3. Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Gregorian chants, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements all come together on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary latest work. Orchestrating music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through 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
