It became clear, midway through support act Toddla T that this was going to be a bit special. With a view from the front of the first tier balcony, I could see the melee below and the two balconies above. The Shepherd’s Bush Empire is a gorgeous 109 year old theatre that’s been a music hall and BBC studio in its time but no-one was sitting down tonight, far from it. Those on the upper tiers were leaning forward over the balconies, whooping and waving their arms, everyone everywhere seemed to be moving.

In 2009 Orbital returned too soon. Dance music icons Paul and Phil Hartnoll only called it a day a little over four years previously so it was hardly a magnificent comeback. The resulting live shows smelt more of tax bills than art. Fair enough, we all have to live, but it was a shame to see such a great creative pairing fizzle rather than shine.

Remember Primal Scream’s woozy “Higher Than the Sun”? It’s a fair bet Mauro Remiddi does. His debut album as Porcelain Raft drifts through 10 foggy songs as disconnected, yet warmly melodic, as that era-defining excursion through the ether.

Justice – pronounce it “Joosteece”, for they are as French as they come – deconstruct the opposition between style and substance. Everything about them is preposterous, from the hipster facial hair via the rock-pig antics in their A Cross The Universe tour “documentary” DVD to the way that almost the entirety of their musical palette is cribbed from their countrymen and close associates Daft Punk.

The Chemical Brothers have long had one of the most vital shows around. It’s a visual spectacular that can only be likened to peak-time Pink Floyd or Jean-Michel Jarre, yet precision-tooled, without the bombast of those acts. Their long-term visual designer, Adam Smith, is mostly responsible and now he’s shot a concert film of the electronic duo’s appearance at the Fuji Rock Festival in Japan last year. Smith has directed a few bits and bobs before, notably the BBC adaptation of Little Dorrit, and he’s the perfect choice to take the Chemical Brothers experience into the cinema.

Against all the odds, I find myself going into 2012 with a strong sense of optimism. And the reason? I am a born-again rave zealot. I saw it at Outlook Festival in Croatia, I saw it at Sónar in Barcelona, and I saw it at the Big Chill where I was running a stage; participatory, constructive, creative partying, where the crowds go not just to be entertained but to plug into something bigger, to be part of something.

2011 was a year when the wheels of global history cranked noticeably forward, the news always full of images that will be in school text books within a decade. It was also the year when, for most of us, “a bit peeved” became “utterly livid” that greedy, over-privileged vermin had gambled and lost all our money and were clearly getting away with it, unhindered.

If 2011 was the year when dance music's natural tendency to fragmentation was taken to extremes, this album was the one that bound those fragments together into one demented but scintillating vision. Russell Whyte – Rustie – comes from a very particularly Scottish club scene that is the perfect antidote to the idea that musical connoisseurship means nerdiness.

Whether it's via the Disc of the Day column or our eclectic mix of overnight live reviews, on theartsdesk we try to traverse as much of the world of New Music as we possibly can. As Christmas swings around we consider it our duty to help guide readers through the thicket of music DVDs. They can be a tricky proposition: with live concert films it's notoriously hard to retain the sense of occasion while also somehow rising above it, while documentaries are often either exercises in fan-only arcana or ego-fuelled attempts to build a personality cult.