I love BBC radio as much as anyone but every now and then I wake up and think to myself, "Today is not a John Humphrys day. Neither is it a Victoria Derbyshire day. And if I have to hear Roger Bolton placating another listener aggrieved by a rogue split infinitive on Feedback, I honestly can't be responsible for my actions." On those days, I go online and listen to This American Life.

You'd have to say this New York duo, singer Lizzy Plapinger and producer Max Hershenow, have given a fair summation of their debut album with that title, such is both the familiarity and enchantment of the music within.

As its title hints, this often sounds more like a BBC4 documentary than a pop record. And that’s no bad thing.

Her 2010 album of Glass, Tavener and Nyman pieces was a more effective showcase for Amy Dickson's soprano sax than this collection of popular classics and classic pop. Fauré's “Pavane” works fine – her sleek , pure timbre, closer to clarinet or even oboe at times, floats weight-lessly over the gentle pizzicato and swish of strings; but the sax lacks the emotional flexibility of the human voice when taking the vocal line to “Casta Diva”, from Bellini's Norma.

Floraleda Sacchi's harp lends itself particularly well to the minimalist logic of Philip Glass's progressions on this anthology of transpositions, never better than on the “Opening” from Glassworks, where the bass pulse beds beautifully among the mirroring figures of the theme.

Louis Armstrong singing spiritual-jazz anthem "The Creator Has a Masterplan" (and sounding great) is one of the more bizarre experiences on this neat compendium of black consciousness from the vaults of Bob Thiele's Flying Dutchman label.

Rarely performed, Mahler's Das Klagende Lied is a grisly fantasy in which the bones of a victim of regal fratricide are used to make a magic flute which, when played by the murderer, reveals his guilt – a sort of cross between Hamlet and Saw.

Another half-serious, half-jokey album by Brooklyn parodists MOPDTK, this time aimed at the promising target of "smooth jazz".

Trumpeter Smith – whose epic Ten Freedom Summers is probably the most impressive jazz recording of the year – left segregated Mississippi for the army at around the same time as drummer Moholo-Moholo joined the soon-to-be-exiled Blue Notes in apartheid Cape Town.

With its out-of-phase arpeggios, unrelenting metronomic beats, muffled, indistinct vocals and an approach to recording (no overdubs, only edits) which approaches Dogme, Bristolian band Beak> – the brainchild of Portishead maestro Geoff Barrow – are clearly admirers of the Germanic experimentalists of the early 1970s.

Voice, piano, autoharp, synth bleeps... But it's the voice you listen to.

Britain in a Day – filmed by the plain people of Britain and assembled by Morgan Matthews – was, in the nature of its construction, a highly miscellaneous portrait of the nation. On Saturday 12 November last year, anyone who wanted to could film what they were up to that day and upload it to YouTube.

'Prince has a knack for really funky stuff on a drum machine'