The 10 Best International Albums of 2025

The past twelve months have offered a rich tapestry of global sounds that defied expectations. We explore ten notable albums that defined the year in music.

10. The Percussionist Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already

The concept of a 40-minute, uninterrupted piece built on repetitive percussion may not appear the most approachable listening experience. Yet, south Asian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar turns this driving beat into a unexpectedly magnetic work. Guiding an trio of three drummers, Korwar crafts a dense percussive vocabulary across the record's 10 movements. His composition channels Steve Reich's phasing motifs as well as traditional Indian musical phrasing, everything tethered in the reiteration of a persistent, thrumming figure. Over its duration, this refrain begins to emulate the hypnotic repetition of devotional music, drawing the listener further into Korwar's singular percussive world.

9. Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget

Coming off an eight-year break, Arab vocalist and composer Yasmine Hamdan re-emerges with a mournful set of songs. The work builds upon the Arabic-sung, dub-tinged sound that made her a staple in the region's indie music scene since the nineties. Hamdan's vocal delivery is gentle and ruminative, delivering delicate melodies atop the string arrangements of a track like Hon and the rolling trip-hop groove of Vows. During more energetic moments such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a trembling, yearning vibrato over electronic lines with North African flavors and rattling electronic percussion. The production is sparse and understated, yet this minimalism provides the ideal canvas for Hamdan's emotive lyricism to shine through. The album proves to be well worth the long anticipation.

Number Eight: Debit – Slowed Down

From Mexico producer Debit specializes in uncanny reworkings of historical sounds. For 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 slows this sound to a near-halt, running its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm via veils of murk and hiss to generate a fresh, foreboding rhythm. At turns ambient and unsettling, Debit transforms the celebratory party music of cumbia into a enduring, spectral afterimage.

Number Seven: The São Paulo Producer DJ K – Liberator Radio!

Sheer intensity is the defining principle for the music of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, who performs as DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira layers a tumult of sirens, explosive bass tones and shouted lyrics over the longstanding Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This captures the propulsive sound of urban celebrations. On his new record, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the intensity, throwing in everything from four-on-the-floor techno beats to the sound of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a notably frenetic and punishingly loud 40-minute listening experience. Submit to the cacophony and Vieira's brash productions become unexpectedly freeing.

Number Six: The Singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco

Religious vocalist Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's early-80s release 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 compelling fusion of the sharp sound of electronic keyboards and programmed drums with her melismatic Indian classical vocal technique. Electronic percussion echoes the undulating tones of the traditional drums, while synth lines doubles the traditional sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. At other times, bossa nova rhythm takes center stage on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya channels a up-tempo funky bass rhythm. It's a club-ready hybrid created more than ten years before the global breakthrough of South Asian electronic music.

Number Five: Enji – Resonance

Mongolian singer Enji's gentle new release, Sonor, expands on her jazz-inflected sound to deliver some of her most wide-ranging music so far. Departing from her background in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's eleven songs veer from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodics of downtempo number Ulbar to the German-language narration 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. Showcasing a ensemble rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains close, drawing the listener into the warm acoustics of her unique voice.

4. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa

Drawing on the psychedelic tradition of Anatolian rock pioneered by groups such as Moğollar, Turkish-born, Germany-based singer Derya Yıldırım's latest work with her band Grup Şimşek fuses the metallic twang of the amplified traditional lute with woozy keyboard and R&B-inflected lines. It's a retro-70s aesthetic anchored in Yıldırım's commanding falsetto and influenced by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. However, on Turkish standards such as the folk tune Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group ventures into lively new territory. They create slinking, downtempo grooves and powerful vocals that lend a novel, quirky interpretation to the Turkish psych sound.

3. Lido Pimienta – The Beauty

Catholic requiem mass music, Eastern European folk melodies and symphonic arrangements merge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's extraordinary fourth album. Orchestrating music for the 60-piece 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 counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic dembow rhythms of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. Yet, it is Pim