The Ten Top International Records of 2025
The past twelve months have offered a rich tapestry of global releases that expanded horizons. Here is a countdown of ten remarkable albums that characterized the year in music.
Number Ten: The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
An album consisting of a single, extended movement of repetitive drumming could sound like it isn't the most approachable musical proposition. Yet, Indian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar converts this insistent rhythm into a hypnotically captivating work. Guiding an trio of three drummers, Korwar develops a intricate percussive language across the record's ten sections. The album channels Steve Reich's phasing motifs combined with traditional Indian musical phrasing, everything tethered in the recurrence of a continual, pulsing figure. The longer one listens, this refrain evokes the hypnotic repetition of ceremonial music, luring the listener deeper into Korwar's distinctive percussive universe.
Number Nine: Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
After an long absence, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan returns with a mournful collection of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-sung, dub-influenced sound that established her as a fixture in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the nineties. Hamdan's vocal delivery is quiet and ruminative, delivering tender melodies over 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 uses a trembling, longing vocal technique against north African synth lines and clattering electronic percussion. The album's sound is lean and restrained, yet this simplicity provides the ideal canvas for Hamdan's emotive compositions to shine through. It is that justifies the wait.
8. Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico electronic artist Debit excels at haunting reimaginings of historical sounds. For her new album, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dubby interpretation of the shuffling Latin American musical style. Debit drags this sound even further, processing its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm via sheets of distortion and static to create a novel, foreboding rhythm. Periodically atmospheric and discomfiting, Debit transforms the joyous dancefloor sound of cumbia into a persistent, ethereal afterimage.
7. DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sensory overload is the operative word for the records of Brazilian 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 screamed lyrics over the enduring Brazilian genre of baile funk. This emulates the driving sound of neighborhood block parties. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the ferocity, 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 notably hyperactive and overwhelmingly noisy forty-minute sonic journey. Give in to the assault and Vieira's unapologetic productions become oddly freeing.
6. The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a rediscovered masterpiece. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an strikingly compelling blend of the synthetic sound of early synthesizers and drum machines with her ornate Indian classical vocal technique. Drum machine patterns echoes the undulating tones of the traditional drums, while synth lines parallels the classic 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 up-tempo funky bass rhythm. It's a party blend created over a decade before the rise of Asian Underground music.
5. Enji – Resonance
From Mongolia singer Enji's soft latest record, Sonor, develops her jazz-inflected sound to offer some of her broadest music so far. Moving away from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks veer from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodies of downtempo number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-inflected cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a live band rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound manages to stay personal, pulling the listener into the warm acoustics of her distinctive voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – If There Is No Tomorrow
Channeling the psychedelic tradition of Turkish psychedelia pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's third record alongside her group blends the electric jangle of the amplified traditional lute with drifting keyboard and R&B-inflected lines. It's a nostalgic vibe anchored in Yıldırım's commanding high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape aesthetic. Yet, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group reaches lively new territory. They craft smooth, downtempo grooves and powerful vocals that give a new, quirky twist to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
Number Three: The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Gregorian chants, Czech harpsichord folksong and orchestral strings merge on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary latest work. Arranging music for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett traverse a vast range including the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic reggaeton-inspired beats of the woodwind-heavy El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim
