Our 10 Best International Records of 2025

Looking back on the musical landscape of worldwide releases that pushed boundaries. Here is a countdown of ten notable albums that characterized the year in music.

10. The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already

A continuous, 40-minute suite of repetitive percussion may not appear the most accessible musical proposition. Yet, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar converts this insistent rhythm into a strangely alluring piece. Guiding an trio of three drummers, Korwar creates a complex percussive dialect over the record's ten sections. His composition draws from minimalist concepts from Steve Reich combined with traditional Indian musical phrasing, each grounded in the recurrence of a persistent, driving figure. The longer one listens, this refrain starts to mirror the ceremonial rhythm of devotional music, drawing the listener deeper into Korwar's singular percussive universe.

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

Coming off an hiatus of eight years, Arab singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a mournful album of songs. She expands on the Arabic-language, dub-tinged style that established her as a fixture in the region's indie music scene since the nineties. Hamdan's voice is quiet and thoughtful, singing delicate melodies atop the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rolling trip-hop beat of Vows. During more energetic moments such as Shadia and Abyss, she adopts a wavering, longing vocal technique against Maghrebi-inspired synth melodies and skittering electronic percussion. The production is sparse and restrained, yet this minimalism offers the ideal setting for Hamdan's emotive lyricism to resonate. It is that justifies the long anticipation.

8. Debit – Slowed Down

Mexican producer Debit has a knack for uncanny reimaginings of traditional music. On her new album, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dubby interpretation of the rhythmic Latin American musical style. Debit slows this sound to a near-halt, running its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm via sheets of murk and static to generate a fresh, menacing groove. Periodically ambient and unsettling, Debit morphs the celebratory party music of cumbia into a lasting, ethereal echo.

Number Seven: The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Radio Libertadora!

Sheer intensity is the key term for the music of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a cacophony of alarms, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics over the longstanding Brazilian genre of baile funk. This recreates the driving sound of favela street parties. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the energy, incorporating everything from four-on-the-floor techno beats to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly frenetic and punishingly loud forty-minute listening experience. Give in to the noise and Vieira's brash productions become unexpectedly freeing.

6. Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco

Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco beats and Punjabi folk melodies is a rediscovered treasure. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an remarkably compelling combination of the synthetic sound of 1980s synthesisers and programmed drums with her fluid classical Indian singing style. Drum machine patterns mirrors the rolling tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody parallels the traditional sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, Latin-inflected grooves comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a fast-paced disco bass groove. It's a club-ready hybrid pioneered over a decade before the rise of Asian Underground music.

Number Five: The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance

From Mongolia singer Enji's gentle fourth album, Sonor, expands on her jazz-influenced sound to present some of her broadest music so far. Stepping outside her background 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 trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a energetic, funk-inflected cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a ensemble rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay close, drawing the listener into the tender soundscape of her singular voice.

Number Four: Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa

Channeling the 1960s legacy of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's third record with her band Grup Şimşek merges the distinctive buzz of the electrified saz with dreamy Mellotron and classic soul melodies. It's a retro-70s aesthetic grounded in Yıldırım's powerful falsetto and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. However, on Turkish standards such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group reaches dynamic new territory. They craft smooth, slow-burning grooves and powerful vocals that lend a new, unconventional spin to the Anatolian psychedelic style.

3. The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – The Beauty

Catholic requiem mass music, Czech harpsichord folksong and symphonic arrangements merge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's remarkable latest work. Arranging music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett traverse everything from the Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated dembow rhythms of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim