As the snow falls and the temperature drops, many people are playing seasonally appropriate music. FM radio stations begin playing Christmas music around the clock in the earliest moments of November, so some may say this column will arrive too late. Instead of writing about the more popular holiday and winter classics, I decided to shed some light on a few excellent, under-the-radar albums perfect for the holiday season and the subsequent winter months.

1. Sufjan Stevens — “Silver and Gold”

In 2015, we’ll see Christmas releases from Ariana Grande, Carly Rae Jepsen and dozens of Frank Sinatra knock-offs. If you’re like me and feeling the Christmas spirit, you’ll bypass the Bublé and try to listen to something that hasn’t been done seven million times. I recommend Sufjan Stevens’s second Christmas album, “Silver and Gold.” This 2012 release is two hours and 47 minutes of pure Christmas cheer performed and sometimes written by one of the most acclaimed singer-songwriters of this millennium. You’ll still find covers of “Silent Night,” “Jingle Bells” and other Christmas classics amazing, no doubt, but the huge amount of original material differentiates “Silver and Gold” from the mass of Christmas compilations. Stevens’ haunting voice, masterful playing ability and unique songwriting style shines through all these modern carols. “Silver and Gold” appeals to listeners sick of the same old Christmas music but also resonates with Christmas music aficionados.

2. Erran Baron Cohen — “Songs in the Key of Hanukkah”

Erran Baron Cohen set to work on a Hanukkah-themed album after scoring his younger brother Sasha’s widely successful and controversial film, “Borat.” The Baron Cohen brothers’ deeply rooted Jewish faith and outside-the-box approach to art-making comes alive on this release. Erran incorporated a wide variety of musical genres in this modern take on the Hanukkah album. From hip-hop to reggae to soft rock, “Songs in the Key of Hanukkah” is a catchy, fun and truly unique compilation of Hanukkah tunes.

3. Ralph Vaughan Williams — “Sinfonia Antartica, Symphony No. 7”

Classical music and winter so often go hand-in-hand. Dozens of famous composers from Tchaikovsky to Schubert wrote entire song cycles and symphonies about the coldest season. My personal favorite winter-centric classical piece is Ralph Vaughan Williams’s “Symphony No. 7.” Much of this five-movement symphony was originally intended to score the 1948 film “Scott of the Antarctic.” “Sinfonia Antartica” feels a lot like a film score with haunting woodwinds, lyric-less vocal sections and sound effects from an acoustic wind machine generating the grandiose and eerie vibe.

4. Biosphere — “Substrata”

Arctic ambient — one of ambient music’s many subgenres — aims to give sonic qualities to cold weather and winter landscapes. Biosphere’s “Substrata” is a seminal album in both the arctic ambient subgenre and ambient music as a whole. “Substrata” incorporates drawn-out and airy electronic instrumentation as well as sound effects designed to emulate howling winds. Even the spoken word vocal samples evoke feelings of cold and winter.