This Ten Greatest International Releases of 2025
The past twelve months have offered a rich tapestry of international music that pushed boundaries. Presenting a selection of ten remarkable albums that characterized the year in music.
10. The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on cyclical drumming might not seem the easiest musical proposition. However, south Asian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar converts this insistent rhythm into a strangely alluring album. Directing an trio of three drummers, Korwar creates a complex percussive language throughout the record's 10 movements. The album draws from Steve Reich's phasing motifs as well as traditional Indian musical phrasing, each grounded in the reiteration of a continual, pulsing refrain. Over its duration, this refrain begins to emulate the ceremonial rhythm of ceremonial music, drawing the listener deeper into Korwar's singular percussive realm.
Number Nine: The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Forget, I Remember
Coming off an long absence, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a mournful album of songs. It continues exploring the Arabic-language, dub-influenced aesthetic that made her a staple in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the nineties. Hamdan's vocal delivery is soft and thoughtful, delivering delicate melodies over the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop beat of Vows. During more energetic moments such as Shadia and Abyss, she uses a wavering, longing vibrato against electronic lines with North African flavors and skittering electronic percussion. The production is lean and subtle, yet this minimalism creates the ideal canvas for Hamdan's emotive songwriting to resonate. It is well worth the long anticipation.
8. The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down
From Mexico producer Debit excels at haunting reinterpretations of traditional music. On her new album, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected version of the shuffling Latin American musical style. Debit decelerates this sound down to a crawl, filtering its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm via veils of distortion and hiss to create a novel, foreboding beat. Sometimes ambient and unsettling, Debit transforms the celebratory party music of cumbia into a enduring, ethereal echo.
Number Seven: DJ K – Liberator Radio!
Sheer intensity is the key term for the records of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a cacophony of alarms, explosive bass tones and shouted lyrics over the classic Brazilian genre of baile funk. This emulates the energetic sound of neighborhood block parties. On his second album, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira cranks up the intensity, throwing in everything from driving techno rhythms to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly manic and overwhelmingly noisy forty-minute listening experience. Surrender to the cacophony and Vieira's unapologetic productions become unexpectedly freeing.
6. The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's record from 1982 of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a newly appreciated masterpiece. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an unusually engaging combination of the synthetic sound of 1980s synthesisers and programmed drums with her ornate classical Indian vocal technique. Electronic percussion mirrors the wavelike tones of the tabla, while synth lines parallels the classic sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, bossa nova rhythm is prominent on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a up-tempo funky bass rhythm. It's a club-ready hybrid pioneered over a decade before the rise of Asian Underground music.
Number Five: Enji – Resonance
Mongolian singer Enji's gentle new release, Sonor, develops her jazz-influenced sound to deliver some of her broadest music to date. Moving away from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks veer from the soft jazz-pop melodics of downtempo number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a energetic, funk-tinged cover of the 80s Mongolian pop hit Eejiinhee Hairaar. Featuring a live band rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still close, pulling the listener into the tender soundscape of her unique voice.
Number Four: Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow
Channeling the psychedelic tradition of Anatolian rock established by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's third record alongside her group fuses the metallic twang of the electrified saz with dreamy Mellotron and soulful tunes. It's a retro-70s aesthetic anchored in Yıldırım's powerful falsetto and influenced by producer Leon Michels' warm, tape-saturated aesthetic. However, on Turkish standards such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group reaches dynamic new territory. They develop smooth, slow-burning grooves and lifting vocals that give a new, unconventional spin to the Turkish psych sound.
3. Lido Pimienta – La Belleza
Catholic requiem mass music, Czech harpsichord folksong and orchestral strings all come together on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's stunning fourth album. Orchestrating music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett traverse everything from the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic interweaving lines of Aún Te Quiero and the syncopated reggaeton-inspired beats of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim
