🔗 Share this article The 10 Greatest International Albums of the Year 2025 Looking back on the musical landscape of worldwide music that expanded horizons. We explore ten exceptional albums that characterized the year in music. Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already An album consisting of a single, extended movement of insistent drumming may not appear the easiest listening experience. But, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar transforms this persistent pulse into a hypnotically captivating album. Guiding an group of three drummers, Korwar crafts a complex percussive dialect over the record's ten sections. The work references the phasing techniques of Steve Reich as well as Indian classical phrasing, all anchored in the repetition of a persistent, thrumming refrain. The longer one listens, this refrain evokes the ceremonial rhythm of ceremonial music, pulling the listener further into Korwar's singular percussive realm. 9. The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget Following an hiatus of eight years, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a mournful album of songs. She expands on the Arabic-language, dub-influenced aesthetic that cemented her status in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is quiet and thoughtful, delivering tender melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rolling trip-hop groove of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a wavering, yearning vibrato over electronic lines with North African flavors and rattling electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is sparse and understated, yet this minimalism creates the perfect environment for Hamdan's deeply felt compositions to shine through. This is a record that justifies the long anticipation. 8. The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down From Mexico electronic artist Debit specializes in eerie reimaginings of historical sounds. On her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dub-inflected take of the shuffling Latin American dance genre. Debit decelerates this sound down to a crawl, filtering its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm through veils of sludge and static to generate a new, foreboding rhythm. Sometimes ambient and discomfiting, Debit converts the exuberant party music of cumbia into a persistent, ghostly echo. Number Seven: DJ K – Radio Libertadora! Sensory overload is the defining principle for the records of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a tumult of alarms, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics on top of the classic Brazilian genre of baile funk. This emulates the propulsive sound of favela street parties. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the ferocity, incorporating everything from driving techno rhythms to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly hyperactive and deafeningly intense 40-minute listening experience. Submit to the cacophony and Vieira's bold productions become unexpectedly exhilarating. Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco beats and traditional Punjabi tunes is a reissued gem. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an strikingly engaging combination of the sharp sound of early synthesizers and programmed drums with her ornate Indian classical vocal technique. Electronic percussion mirrors the wavelike tones of the traditional drums, while synth lines doubles the classic sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. At other times, Latin-inflected grooves comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a driving walking disco bassline. It's a dancefloor fusion delivered more than ten years before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music. 5. Enji – Sonor Mongolian singer Enji's soft new release, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-influenced sound to deliver some of her broadest music so far. Stepping outside her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs travel from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodics of downtempo number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a sprightly, funk-inflected cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Showcasing a live band rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still personal, inviting the listener into the tender acoustics of her distinctive voice. 4. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa Inspired by the psychedelic tradition of Anatolian rock established by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's third record alongside her group fuses the metallic twang of the electrified saz with drifting Mellotron and classic soul melodies. It's a nostalgic vibe rooted in Yıldırım's powerful high register and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. But, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group ventures into dynamic new territory. They create sinuous, downtempo grooves and soaring vocals that impart a new, unconventional spin to the Anatolian psychedelic style. Number Three: The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza Gregorian chants, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings 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 Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic dembow rhythms of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim
Looking back on the musical landscape of worldwide music that expanded horizons. We explore ten exceptional albums that characterized the year in music. Number Ten: Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already An album consisting of a single, extended movement of insistent drumming may not appear the easiest listening experience. But, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar transforms this persistent pulse into a hypnotically captivating album. Guiding an group of three drummers, Korwar crafts a complex percussive dialect over the record's ten sections. The work references the phasing techniques of Steve Reich as well as Indian classical phrasing, all anchored in the repetition of a persistent, thrumming refrain. The longer one listens, this refrain evokes the ceremonial rhythm of ceremonial music, pulling the listener further into Korwar's singular percussive realm. 9. The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget Following an hiatus of eight years, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a mournful album of songs. She expands on the Arabic-language, dub-influenced aesthetic that cemented her status in the region's indie music scene since the 1990s. Hamdan's voice is quiet and thoughtful, delivering tender melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rolling trip-hop groove of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a wavering, yearning vibrato over electronic lines with North African flavors and rattling electronic percussion. The musical backdrop is sparse and understated, yet this minimalism creates the perfect environment for Hamdan's deeply felt compositions to shine through. This is a record that justifies the long anticipation. 8. The Mexican Producer Debit – Slowed Down From Mexico electronic artist Debit specializes in eerie reimaginings of historical sounds. On her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she turns her attention to the 1990s variant of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dub-inflected take of the shuffling Latin American dance genre. Debit decelerates this sound down to a crawl, filtering its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm through veils of sludge and static to generate a new, foreboding rhythm. Sometimes ambient and discomfiting, Debit converts the exuberant party music of cumbia into a persistent, ghostly echo. Number Seven: DJ K – Radio Libertadora! Sensory overload is the defining principle for the records of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, AKA DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a tumult of alarms, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics on top of the classic Brazilian genre of baile funk. This emulates the propulsive sound of favela street parties. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the ferocity, incorporating everything from driving techno rhythms to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a particularly hyperactive and deafeningly intense 40-minute listening experience. Submit to the cacophony and Vieira's bold productions become unexpectedly exhilarating. Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco beats and traditional Punjabi tunes is a reissued gem. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks present an strikingly engaging combination of the sharp sound of early synthesizers and programmed drums with her ornate Indian classical vocal technique. Electronic percussion mirrors the wavelike tones of the traditional drums, while synth lines doubles the classic sound of the reed organ on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. At other times, Latin-inflected grooves comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya features a driving walking disco bassline. It's a dancefloor fusion delivered more than ten years before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music. 5. Enji – Sonor Mongolian singer Enji's soft new release, Sonor, builds upon her jazz-influenced sound to deliver some of her broadest music so far. Stepping outside her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs travel from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodics of downtempo number Ulbar to the German-language narration lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a sprightly, funk-inflected cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Showcasing a live band rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound is still personal, inviting the listener into the tender acoustics of her distinctive voice. 4. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa Inspired by the psychedelic tradition of Anatolian rock established by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's third record alongside her group fuses the metallic twang of the electrified saz with drifting Mellotron and classic soul melodies. It's a nostalgic vibe rooted in Yıldırım's powerful high register and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. But, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 1960s song Ceylan, the group ventures into dynamic new territory. They create sinuous, downtempo grooves and soaring vocals that impart a new, unconventional spin to the Anatolian psychedelic style. Number Three: The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza Gregorian chants, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings 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 Gregorian chants of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the theatrical counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic dembow rhythms of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim