In this segment, we showcase the most notable albums out each week. Here are the albums out on December 19, 2025:
Theo Bleak, Bargaining
Technically a mixtape, and technically released on December 18 – but Bargaining by Theo Bleak, the project of Dundee-based artist Katie Lynch, might be the most exciting new collection of songs I’ve heard this month. Following a run of EPs, it’s unflinchingly raw and achingly pretty in a way that has me excited for a debut LP but ensures I’ll be going back to several of its 14 songs. Lynch described it as “a chronological mixtape of my year through the most intense stage of grief I experienced- bargaining. Coming to terms with change, which felt unsurpassable, deep love, and brutal honesty. My mixtape was recorded at each of the rawest, saddest moments. The creak of my studio chair was audible in some of the tracks where I sat down to reason with my life, my mistakes, and my choices.”
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Thoughts on the Future
The release schedule is pretty dead this time of year, which means we have to be pretty lenient with what we consider a full-length release. Regardless of how you categorize it, the latest from producer and composer Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith – a collection of three lengthy instrumentals titled Thoughts on the Future, which follows her recent album GUSH – is worth your time. Overflowing with resonant intimacy, the record revolves largely around grief, beginning with the beautiful opener ‘I Miss the Way You Swim’, about which Smith has said: “I miss the way you swim emerges from a deeply personal moment: someone I love losing someone they loved. This composition is shaped by loss, written with the quiet intention of holding someone through the unholdable…”
Ekin Fil, Bora Boreas
Bora Boreas is a haunting, perfectly foggy new album from Istanbul-based ambient artist Ekin Fil. “This album came together across different moments and shifting moods, moving in opposite directions and never fully settling much like the sudden, restless bursts of a bora wind,” a statement on the record’s Bandcamp page reads. “Each track belongs to a different time and a different inner weather, carrying its own distance and temperature. Within these shifting winds were the quiet weights of regret, the faint traces of shame, and the strange urge to believe without question in certain things, even when nothing felt possible, all passing through like brief, cold currents that never stayed long enough to be fully named.”
Davide Cedolin, Ligurian Pastoral Vol.II
It’s been a big year for high-profile fingerstyle guitarists like Hayden Pedigo and William Tyler, who both released great records in 2025. If you were into those albums, you might want to check out Ligurian Pastoral Vol.II, the latest effort by Ligurian-based artist Davide Cedoli, who nowadays mostly specializes in guitar-oriented instrumental music. It’s the second chapter in his exploration of rural Liguria. Entwined with field recordings, accordion, and synthesizer, Cedoli’s playing is accompanied by collaborators Tommaso Rolando (double bass and piano), Riccardo Komesar (acoustic nine-string guitar and electric guitar), and Kaily Schenker (cello).
