The 10 Greatest International Records of the Year 2025

As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the international sounds that expanded horizons. Here is a countdown of ten exceptional albums that defined the year in music.

10. The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Already Is Beauty

An album consisting of a single, extended movement of insistent percussion could sound like it isn't the most approachable musical proposition. But, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar turns this insistent rhythm into a strangely alluring piece. Directing an group of three drummers, Korwar creates a complex percussive dialect throughout the record's ten sections. His composition references Steve Reich's phasing motifs as well as traditional Indian musical phrasing, everything tethered in the reiteration of a continual, pulsing refrain. The longer one listens, this refrain starts to mirror the ceremonial rhythm of ceremonial music, luring the listener further into Korwar's unique percussive world.

9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember

After an long absence, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a contemplative collection of songs. She expands on the Arabic-language, dub-tinged style that made her a staple in the region's indie music scene since the nineties. Hamdan's voice is soft and thoughtful, delivering delicate melodies atop the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rolling trip-hop beat of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a quivering, yearning vocal technique over north African synth lines and skittering electronic percussion. The album's sound is lean and restrained, yet this austerity creates the ideal environment for Hamdan's expressive lyricism to take center stage. The album proves to be that justifies the wait.

8. Debit – Slowed Down

Mexican producer Debit excels at uncanny reinterpretations of historical sounds. For her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dub-inflected take of the shuffling Latin American dance music genre. Debit decelerates this sound down to a crawl, running its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm via layers of murk and noise to create a novel, sinister beat. At turns atmospheric and discomfiting, Debit converts the joyous party music of cumbia into a enduring, ethereal echo.

Number Seven: DJ K – Radio Libertadora!

Sensory overload is the operative word for the output of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a cacophony of alarms, pummeling bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the classic Brazilian genre of baile funk. This recreates the driving sound of urban celebrations. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the intensity, incorporating everything from techno kick drums to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his frantic bruxaria mix. The result is a especially hyperactive and overwhelmingly noisy forty-minute sonic journey. Surrender to the assault and Vieira's bold productions become oddly exhilarating.

6. The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi

Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco beats and traditional Punjabi tunes is a newly appreciated gem. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks deliver an unusually engaging blend of the metallic sound of 1980s synthesisers and programmed drums with her ornate classical Indian vocal technique. Drum machine patterns mimics the wavelike tones of the tabla, while synth lines replicates the traditional sound of the reed organ 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 channels a up-tempo disco bass groove. It's a dancefloor fusion pioneered more than ten years before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.

5. The Mongolian Artist Enji – Resonance

Mongolian singer Enji's soft fourth album, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-inflected sound to present some of her most diverse music yet. Moving away from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's selection of pieces veer from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodics of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a sprightly, funk-tinged cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a live band rather than her usual setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains personal, inviting the listener into the gentle soundscape of her distinctive voice.

Number Four: Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa

Inspired by the psychedelic tradition of Turkish psychedelia established by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work alongside her group blends the electric jangle of the electrified saz with dreamy keyboard and classic soul melodies. It's a 1970s throwback sound anchored in Yıldırım's powerful high register and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape aesthetic. However, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group reaches dynamic new territory. They craft sinuous, slow-burning grooves and soaring vocals that impart a novel, off-kilter twist to the Turkish psych sound.

Number Three: The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – The Beauty

Sacred music, Czech harpsichord folksong 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 journey through a vast range including the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic reggaeton-inspired beats of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Ultimately, it is Pim