Steve Earle's latest album pulls no punches in its survey of the American social landscape. The “low highway” of the title track is a sort of hardship highway travelled by the underclass. It's Springsteen territory, occupied with pride in songs like “21st Century Blues” and the elegiac closer “Remember Me”.

There's something about the Zen-garden aspect of John Cage's music that lends itself particularly well to these interpretations by the Italian harpist Floraleda Sacchi. The instrument is especially effective in the more obviously “beautiful” pieces such as “Dream” and “In a Landscape”, where the undulating, intertwining figures have the same serene intensity as on piano, but are less overtly soothing, always poised on a sharper edge.

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The music of Salvatore Sciarrino dispenses with nearly all the conventions of Western classical form, yet somehow retains a purposive momentum. These are sound events, rather than musical pieces, a form of expressionistic sonic grammar with definite narrative but little definable melody – instead, the instruments create a sort of aural mise en scène in which the vocal exists.

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It was only a matter of time before Sarah Brightman, who effectively created the “classical crossover” genre, should collaborate with Mike Hedges, the producer who brought pop textures to albums by Russell Watson, Camilla Kerslake and The Priests.

Over three decades as They Might Be Giants, the Brooklyn duo of John Flansburgh and John Linnell have developed into a sort of post-modern Flanders & Swann, crafting sharp, witty and entertaining little satires on contemporary mores, set to a dizzying range of styles chosen for humorous emphasis.

Begun as a tribute to Ray Charles, The Blue Room expanded to include more modern songs by Leonard Cohen and Warren Zevon, among others, all treated in Madeleine Peyroux's distinctive languid jazz style. Her covers of Charles's Modern Sounds material are engaging, with the sleek strings and muted trumpet of “Born to Lose” more perfectly perched on the cusp of blues and country than the ungainly “Bye Bye Love”.

Exiles' Cafe was inspired by hearing Michael Sahl's “Tango from the Exiles' Cafe”, after which Lara Downes fantasised the location as a source of comfort for transplanted composers, represented by this series of piano miniatures.

There's a strange, archaic feel to the songs of head Messenger, MC Taylor, with their Biblical references and invocations to “cleave ye to the rock”.