A lot of hum and crackle about hypnagogic pop has passed through the ether in the last 18 months, much of it concerned with Toro Y Moi. Coined for a small raft of mainly American musicians that recast half-remembered pop from their youths, the hypnagogic aura is misty, midway between awake and asleep, and draws from soul like Curtis Mayfield or even Hall and Oates, as well as shiny Eighties cocaine-blasted pop. In America, chillwave covers it too. A lo-fi refit of Don Henley's “Boys of Summer” filtered through sacks of sand and then underpinned with some funk would fit the bill.

A freezing winter of discontent, a Labour party hell-bent on making itself unelectable, controversial warmongering and record levels of inequality. It may sound like yesterday’s papers but these themes were also addressed by iconoclastic post-punk artrockers Gang of Four in the late Seventies and early Eighties, more than 10 years before the Manics brought agit rock to the masses. Next Monday Gang of Four release Content, their first original album in 16 years.

As part of my homework before last night’s gig at the Scala I played Senegalese singer Cheikh Lo’s latest album Jamm over and over again, waiting for some of its tunes to lodge in my mind - waiting to be compelled rather than feel duty bound to play it again. But no, I just couldn't connect with it. There’s nothing ostensibly wrong with the thing: it’s brimming over with easy-going cheer and passion, it's beautifully played and sung, and it’s all wrapped up in that familiar crystal-clear production that producer Nick Gold is so adept at delivering (his recent work with AfroCubism being another perfect example). But something was missing.

Here, we present the exclusive first showing of a new video by the Brighton/London band Belleruche. This clip for “Fuzz Face” is highly arresting, an ingenious and slightly disturbing collision of hi and low-tech, made using thousands of photocopies, and its indicative of a band who are taking some very interesting ideas into the mainstream. But more importantly from theartsdesk's point of view, Belleruche's increasing profile is indicative of a broader cultural shift in the music world.

Paradoxically, the greater the number of established artists you find yourself comparing a new talent to, the more original you are eventually forced to conclude this new talent is. So let’s get those comparisons out of the way: this Kansas City gal sounds a bit like Cassandra Wilson, Joan Armatrading, Me’Shell NdegéOcello, Joni Mitchell, Nina Simone, Sly Stone, Bob Dylan, Bill Withers… and the list could go on. But more importantly Krystle Warren already seems to exude the same kind of gravitas as all of this illustrious roll call.

Back in the days of acid house, it wasn't just drugs, new music and wideboy promoters with slicked-back ponytails and mobile phones the size of Essex that fuelled the party scene. Just as important was the surplus of empty commercial properties created by the recession of the late 1980s, making the setting up of soundsystems in disused warehouses and quarries a doddle. This event, part of the Ninja Tune label's ongoing 20th birthday celebration, wasn't an illicit rave as such, but its use of a previously derelict set of six railway arches in the middle of a recession went some way to recreating a bit of the old atmosphere.

Back in the days of acid house, it wasn't just drugs, new music and wideboy promoters with slicked-back ponytails and mobile phones the size of Essex that fuelled the party scene. Just as important was the surplus of empty commercial properties created by the recession of the late 1980s, making the setting up of soundsystems in disused warehouses and quarries a doddle. This event, part of the Ninja Tune label's ongoing 20th birthday celebration, wasn't an illicit rave as such, but its use of a previously derelict set of six railway arches in the middle of a recession went some way to recreating a bit of the old atmosphere.

After only a couple of songs there are shouts from the audience to turn Mulatu up. But these people have missed the point. The clue is in the name of the instrument he's playing: the vibraphone, or vibes for short. The word "vibe" has long been slang for “a good feeling” or a mood, and that’s precisely what its role was in last night’s concert; to add some of that ambient mysteriousness intrinsic to the five-note Ethiopian scale.

The video for this Kansas fantasist’s new single shows Monáe in harshly lit close-up singing the adrenalin-charged “Cold War” directly to camera. But then halfway through the song her concentration goes and she starts laughing and then crying, leaving one wondering what the thinking was behind its release. Perhaps this “artist and business woman” (as she describes herself) deduced that such a curiosity would get people talking and therefore watching - and she was right: it’s had over a quarter of a million hits so far.

I must confess that when I first heard about Staff Benda Bilili - a Congolese band partly made up of paraplegics – I felt a little uneasy. The last thing that one wants as a (hopefully) trusted critic is to feel compromised by an obligation to give a positive review, or feel guilty about lessening their chances of bettering their circumstances with a bad review. Yes, the vanity and solipsism of your reviewer has no bounds!