Club music has always been hard to keep track of, and never more so than in the current climate of constant genre meltdown and cross-fertilisation. Which is why the DJ's art is more important than ever, particularly in the case of scene figureheads like the indefatigable Gilles Peterson – known for over 20 years as a patron of all things jazzy, but lately proving brilliantly adept at reaching all corners of what he refers to as “left-field dance music”. Shows like his are ideal – necessary, even – for nurturing, contextualising and showcasing new generation genre-agnostic talents like men of the moment James Blake and Flying Lotus who played at Peterson's Worldwide Awards on Saturday night.

2010 saw some major shifts stirring up the UK club music ecosystem and unleashing some fascinating hybrids and variants of existing sounds out into the wild. As the hefty bass of dubstep muscled its way firmly into the heart of the mainstream, everything else was forced to rearrange its position, with some surprising results.

It's only after hanging up the Skype connection to Richie Hawtin that I realise how effective a branding exercise he has made the interview. In conversation the English-born, Canadian-raised Berlin resident is charming and smart, but listening back I realise that he has subtly repeated the names of his projects and products over and over, with the slickness of a high-flying salesman. But then you don't sustain a 20-year career making relentlessly odd music - yet still be regularly ranked in the very top flight of global club DJs alongside perma-tanned monstrosities more likely to be seen schmoozing Madonna or the Black Eyed Peas than in an underground rave bunker - without knowing a few tricks of the trade.

Two lots of abiding electropop royalty, classicist Slovenian techno, an indie band who play electronica, a hyper-synthetic R&B superstar, Irish-Mancunian disco-boogie, "buzzsaw fuzz" meets Phil Spector, Paris-Bordeaux-Alabama-Berlin rock chaos, Welsh psychdelic dreams, a post-dubstep crooner and a novelty song about Gillian McKeith - (almost) all human life is here in Thomas H Green and Joe Muggs's round-up of tracks of interest out to buy now.

Rave music, in its many ever-mutating forms, is now more than a generation into its existence. Many, possibly most, of the crowd pushing into Heaven, under Charing Cross station, weren't even born when acid house fully hit the UK in 1988, but none of them are here for some retro experience. It's hard, as a superannuated lover of electronic beats, not to feel cultural vertigo at the fact that what once felt like the most impossibly inhuman of sounds has now become so ubiquitous and so established as to be a kind of folk music. But there it is, as established as the blues or punk rock, and as woven into the fabric of our lives, yet still mutating and still throwing up fresh variants such as the dubstep which Magnetic Man play.

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.

This month's extraordinary, rich and strange releases are led by Ninja Tune's 20th-anniversary album of new tunes and remixes ("hard to know when to stop throwing the compliments"), Robert Plant's new band ("puts most vintage rockers to shame") and the new one from fellow veteran and "louche Lothario" Bryan Ferry. There's electronica from Magnetic Man and theartsdesk writer Joe Muggs's new Dubstep Compilation, cyber-pop from Tinie Tempah and a terrific new project featuring musicians from Eritrea. Stinker of the Month is the Motown covers record from Phil Collins. Reviewers this month are Joe Muggs, Thomas H Green, David Cheal, Kieron Tyler, Russ Coffey, Graeme Thomson, Adam Sweeting, Marcus O'Dair, Howard Male and Peter Culshaw.

Mark Ronson & The Business Intl, The Bike Song (Sony Music)

There are ways and ways to make novelty retro-pop. Mark Ronson, for example, has absolutely nailed it here. This song, with its almost unbearably sunny Lovin' Spoonful-styled harmony vocals slathered over an early-Nineties pop-hip-hop breakbeat with jaunty raps from Spank Rock, should be awful – should be so calculatedly faux-naif it makes you hurl – but it's just done with so much invention, so much out-and-out glee and such great hooks that it's completely irresistible and delicious.

Dubstep is everywhere – and if you will excuse a little self-promotion I have, in my small way, helped this state of affairs come about. The bass-heavy, rhythmically exploratory and very British electronic dance music genre has now – via Magnetic Man and Katy B – proved it can produce bona fide top-10 hits, and it has become the de facto sound of every summer festival to boot, while still keeping both feet in the underground clubs from whence it emerged.

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.