This month's most fascinating or interesting new CDs filtered out by theartsdesk's reviewing team includes the controversial but fun new one from M.I.A., "the first real pop star of the 21st century" Janelle Monae, and the latest from Arcade Fire. We go to Nashville for Caitlin Rose, Dakar for Cheikh Lo, Ghana and Togo for Afro-Beat Airways and everywhere for the sadly missed Charlie Gillett's last compilation. There's some terrific new piano jazz from Vijay Iyer and several groovy videos. CD of the Month is the "re-invention" of Welsh belter Tom Jones. Our reviewers are Howard Male, Graeme Thomson, Adam Sweeting, Joe Muggs, Peter Culshaw, Bruce Dessau, Thomas H Green and Marcus O'Dair.

This month's most fascinating or interesting new CDs filtered out by theartsdesk's reviewing team includes the controversial but fun new one from M.I.A., "the first real pop star of the 21st century" Janelle Monae, and the latest from Arcade Fire. We go to Nashville for Caitlin Rose, Dakar for Cheikh Lo, Ghana and Togo for Afro-Beat Airways and everywhere for the sadly missed Charlie Gillett's last compilation. There's some terrific new piano jazz from Vijay Iyer and several groovy videos. CD of the Month is the "re-invention" of Welsh belter Tom Jones. Our reviewers are Howard Male, Graeme Thomson, Adam Sweeting, Joe Muggs, Peter Culshaw, Bruce Dessau, Thomas H Green and Marcus O'Dair.

Amongst all the musical benefits for the victims of the Haiti earthquake, one club event which took place on Wednesday night in London stands out as a small, but powerful, beacon of hope. Not because it could rival Jay Z and U2 for levels of funds raised, but because it represented levels of commitment, self-motivation and unity among the capital's multi-ethnic youth subcultures that flies in the face of scare stories about gang violence, drugs, educational failure and all the rest of it. Raising well over £10,000 for Haitians, the entire event on Wednesday night at the club Den/Centro was pulled together in a mere three days by journalist and activist Chantelle Fiddy, promoters SOMEnight, and DJ Stanza of the Watford-based dubstep and grime label True Tiger, and went without hitch despite featuring on its diverse bill many grime rappers and DJs who find it difficult to perform in London due to police pressure on promoters. theartsdesk spoke to a dazed but happy Chantelle Fiddy yesterday to discuss the ramifications of the event.

Linked to Joe Muggs' interview with Tim Lawrence on theartsdesk, this is extracted from the introduction of Hold On To Your Dreams: Arthur Russell and the Downtown Music Scene, 1973-1992.

Arthur Russell hailed from the Midwest, yet felt at home in downtown New York. Outwardly normal to those who observed his checkered shirt and acne-scarred face, he trod the maze-like streets that ran from the battered tenements of the East Village to the abandoned piers on the West Side Highway for hours at a time, and on a daily basis.

There are occasional days when the Royal Festival Hall really feels like the people's palace it was always meant to be – and yesterday, with its free concert of live improvisation mixed with dubstep and electronica in the RFH bar, was absolutely one of them. Rave kids, pensioners, parents with babes in arms and some particularly energetic school-age children all proved that given the right context music the border between “challenging” music and entertainment is more porous than some might like to believe.

Immediately following the death of radio DJ John Peel in 2004, it became clear very rapidly that there was no obvious heir apparent. With so many specialist shows on the station, nobody ran the full gamut of leftfield and underground music in the same way that Peel had. But if anyone comes close, it is Mary Anne Hobbs.

Londoners, we know, can be spoilt. Certainly the crowd, predominantly of nerds in rare and expensive trainers, at the Lightbox last night didn't seem to be overly bubbling with enthusiasm despite an exciting lineup of talent and astonishing surroundings. The main dancefloor area of Lightbox lives up to the club's name, being an arched space with the entire wall/ceiling surface covered in colour-changing LED lights that allow pictures and patterns to dance across the room. 

Glasgow-born, south London resident Steve Goodman – better known to discerning lovers of modern music as Kode 9 – has a unique and privileged position in relation to the ever-shifting UK dance music underground.  In the mid 90s he formed part of the slightly cultish Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU) founded by Sadie Plant and Nick Land at the University of Warwick, where he gained a PhD in philosophy.