The Ten Greatest International Albums of the Year 2025

As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the worldwide sounds that pushed boundaries. We explore ten exceptional albums that characterized the year in music.

Number Ten: The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already

The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on repetitive drumming may not appear the easiest listening experience. However, Indian percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar turns this persistent pulse into a hypnotically captivating album. Directing an group of three drummers, Korwar develops a dense percussive language over the record's ten parts. His composition draws from the phasing techniques of Steve Reich alongside Indian classical phrasing, all anchored in the repetition of a continual, pulsing figure. Over its duration, this refrain begins to emulate the hypnotic repetition of devotional music, luring the listener deeper into Korwar's singular percussive realm.

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

Coming off an hiatus of eight years, Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a melancholy collection of songs. She expands on the Arabic-language, dub-tinged aesthetic that established her as a fixture in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is quiet and ruminative, delivering tender melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the deep trip-hop groove of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a wavering, yearning vibrato over north African synth lines and rattling electronic percussion. The album's sound is lean and understated, yet this simplicity creates the ideal setting for Hamdan's emotive compositions to take center stage. This is a record truly deserving of the wait.

8. Debit – Desaceleradas

Mexican producer Debit has a knack for haunting reimaginings of archival audio. On her most recent project, Desaceleradas, she zeroes in on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a slowed, dub-inflected take of the shuffling Latin American dance music genre. Debit drags this sound even further, running its characteristic synths and off-beat rhythm through veils of murk and noise to generate a novel, sinister groove. At turns atmospheric and uneasy, Debit converts the joyous dancefloor sound of cumbia into a enduring, spectral memory.

Number Seven: DJ K – Radio Libertadora!

Sensory overload is the operative word for the output of Brazilian producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Coining his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira stacks a onslaught of sirens, explosive bass tones and screamed lyrics on top of the longstanding Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This recreates the propulsive sound of neighborhood block parties. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira ramps up the intensity, throwing in everything from techno kick drums to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his chaotic bruxaria mix. The result is a notably manic and punishingly loud 40-minute sonic journey. Give in to the cacophony and Vieira's brash productions become strangely exhilarating.

Number Six: Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco

Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco music and traditional Punjabi tunes is a newly appreciated masterpiece. Recorded by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an strikingly compelling fusion of the sharp sound of 1980s synthesisers and programmed drums with her fluid classical Indian vocal technique. Drum machine patterns mirrors the undulating tones of the traditional drums, while synthesiser melody doubles the classic 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 features a up-tempo walking disco bassline. It's a club-ready hybrid created more than ten years before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.

5. The Mongolian Artist Enji – Sonor

From Mongolia singer Enji's delicate new release, Sonor, develops her jazz-influenced sound to present some of her most diverse music to date. Stepping outside her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks veer from the soft Norah Jones-esque melodics of downtempo number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and trilling guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a lively, funk-tinged cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a ensemble rather than her standard setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains personal, drawing the listener into the warm acoustics of her singular voice.

4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – If There Is No Tomorrow

Drawing on the 60s heritage of Turkish psychedelia established by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work with her band Grup Şimşek blends the metallic twang of the amplified traditional lute with dreamy Mellotron and classic soul melodies. It's a 1970s throwback sound anchored in Yıldırım's strong high register and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape aesthetic. Yet, on classic Turkish songs such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group finds vibrant new territory. They craft sinuous, slow-burning grooves and soaring vocals that impart a new, off-kilter spin to the Turkish psych sound.

Number Three: The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – La Belleza

Catholic requiem mass music, Eastern European folk melodies and orchestral strings all come together on Colombian singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary fourth album. Arranging music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett explore 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 reggaeton-inspired beats of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim