Everyone and their mother has started to post year-end best albums of the year lists. Instead of choosing the best, most well-known pieces this year, the Arcade has decided to give the students of Tulane a list of five albums they may have overlooked this past year, but which still garner close listens and repeated plays. This list is simply alphabetical, no actual ranking involved.

BADBADNOTGOOD – “III”

In the age of modern music, most people tend to view jazz as uncool, or, even worse, a dead art form. BADBADNOTGOOD, a Toronto based trio, have aimed to change that line of thinking. Bursting onto the scene in 2011, the group gained a following through releasing a series of post-jazz electronica remixes of Odd Future tracks.

“III” is the group’s third and most recent album. Yes, creative titling, we know. The sparse titling of the record gives an unfair mirror to the band’s music, which features rich layers of psychedelic texturing steeped in classical tradition, but raised on modern electronics.

The main stand-out track, “Can’t Leave the Night,” opens with pulsing, unforgettable drum beats before swirling into a mesmerizing piano ballad paced by sharp snares. The song spins out of control with progressive high hats, electronic bass lines and pumping synthesizers that produce a spooky soundscape drawing to mind a Halloween Herbie Hancock impersonation.

Almost unrecognizable from its humble beginnings, the group has greatly matured from its remix days. Every track on the album features a completely original base, tantalizing electronic progressions and an overall wholly unmatched sound by any other band currently playing.

Homeshake – “In the Shower”

Canadian born-and-bred artist Peter Sagar has performed under a number of pseudonyms. He is probably most well-known for playing guitar in Mac DeMarco’s old band, Makeout Videotape. Since those days, DeMarco has blown up, figuratively, with his release of “Salad Days” earlier this year. Sagar has continued to play with DeMarco in his touring band, but has since released his own independent music.

Despite earning less critical and mainstream recognition, Sagar’s first label-backed release under Homeshake, “In the Shower,” offers a lot more to listeners in the way of musical and lyrical complexity.

The nine-track record features the similar laid-back, guitar-driven tunes prevalent in DeMarco’s work, but adds a level of jazz to Mac’s jingle. The work ambles about the half-hour run time carefree with doodling, smooth bass lines hovering over groovy, scintillating guitar symphonies. Sagar’s voice acts as another eclectic instrument, neither reaching to the forefront nor fading into the background.

Undoubtedly influenced by the tundra backdrop of Canada, Sagar’s album provides that fuzzy, safe feeling of relaxation one gets sitting by the fire during a blizzard.

Les Sins – “Michael”

Anything Chaz Bundick touches turns to gold. The artist, also known as Toro y Moi, doesn’t create sounds as much as landscapes, transporting his listeners to seemingly distant and desirable locations. With Toro y Moi, Bundick pioneered the ‘chillwave’ movement, which utilized severely filtered sampling vocals, synthesizers and instrumental loops. By changing his operating name, Bundick approaches new territory on this record: the world of dance music.

With “Michael,” Les Sins does not step away from his past usage of samples and electronic whimsy, but harnesses them into a more up-beat and vibrant setting. The cover of the album, an uncropped picture of a deflated banana mask and plain black-and-white text, looks like it easily could have been made by a local middle schooler with an elementary level of experience with Microsoft Paint. The visual aesthetic, while simple, lends credence to Bundick’s departure to a sparser sound based in rhythm and bounce compared to the lush, tropically flushed production.

This record simultaneously embraces the darker and more fanciful sides of Bundick. The track opener opens with a Nas vocal sample leering over a deep house loop cobbled with sampled percussive fragments and booming deep house beats, “Talk about your newest record / And where did you get the name?” This dark theme is interspersed with songs with some downright comical elements. “Bother,” for instance, features a rave rabbling ode to working hard, with Bundick repeatedly rapping “Don’t bother me I’m working / can’t you see.”

Whether you want to break it down while working away at Howie T or drinking your post-final sorrows away with friends, “Michael” can provide the backing soundtrack to any evening.

Quilt – “Held in Splendor”

Quilt, a colorful freak folk trio hailing from Boston, draws inspiration from the wilder hallucinogenic era of the 1960s. The group uses an incredible array of instruments on this record including, but not limited to, the guitar, drums, organ saxophone, violin, cello and steel guitar.

While many rock bands have surfaced lately deriving from the psychedelic free-spirit state of mind pervasive throughout the ’60s and ’70s, Quilt does so in an actually innovative and fresh way. The band sounds like the result of an adult summer camp group, who happened to be extremely musically inclined, all huddled around a bonfire strumming the songs of summer for whoever happened to stroll by.

Dreamy folk ballads glittering with melodic charm pace the majority of the album, but occasionally surprise with build-ups to grander and angrier tracks like “Tired and Buttered.” This track starts with extremely fast moving drum patterns and noodling guitar strumming. The angry shouts soon devolve into a beautifully harmonized orchestra of voices from all three band members while the tempo shifts downward before picking back up at the end of the track with chanting lyrics that must be sung along to.  The progression exemplified holds the case of the album in a nutshell. While spanning many different modes of mind-altering awesomeness, “Held in Splendor” plays pleasantly through with cohesion.

Young Fathers – “Dead”

As far as hip-hop albums go, chances are you have never heard one that sounds remotely like Young Fathers’ “Dead.” Channeling the recent movement of avant-garde rap popularized by groups like Death Grips, clipping., and Shabazz Palaces, Young Fathers pushes the boundaries even further.

“Dead” is the debut album by the Scottish hip-hop group comprised of Alloysious Massaquoi, Kayus Bankole and G Hastings.  The revolutionary album received the Mercury Prize this year, the annual music award for the best album from the United Kingdom. Despite receiving countless critical reviews, the album has yet to see its popularity hop the pond to success in the United States yet.

The group’s sound really cannot be classified beyond the term eccentric. The record opens with the track “No Way,” which revolves around bagpipe-esque synthesizers bouncing around raw spoken word shouts of honest poetic goodness.

“Dead” is a must listen for hip-hop fans or any music lovers with an open mind. The sonical range will definitely challenge any preconceptions about the genre and requires active listening in order to be fully enjoyed. If given the proper attention, listeners will be hard-pressed to find a more well thought out and executed piece of art this year.