Festival De Musique Émergente turns Rouyn-Noranda into a one-of-a-kind occasion for its 24th edition, the lineup running from Charlotte Cornfield’s stripped-back songwriting to Camilla Sparksss’s frenzied techno. Arielle Soucy opens the weekend inside a former church, and La Sécurité headlines a rapturous night at Petit Théâtre du Vieux Noranda. By Sunday, a boat trip round Lac Kanasuta gives way to The Sadies closing the centennial celebrations.

Sairie’s long-awaited debut, Beneath the Spreading Tree, sounds like a lo-fi Pentangle with an added layer of hauntological strangeness. The Brighton trio’s lead vocals make songs seem haunted by their own flickering shadows. This ageless-sounding debut is starkly in its beauty and richly rewarding.

Birdvox are a kind of supergroup, and on ‘Shamming the Drama’ the quartet may, at any given time, backtrack into traditional Scottish folk, sidestep into pulsing disco beats, and lean into glitchy, blissful electronica. Their debt to traditional music gives their sound a unique edge, but of all the many elements that make Birdvox sound like no other band, that sense of community might be one of the most important.

Martin Simpson shares a finely crafted solo performance of Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright.” The track also appears on “Some Kind of Jubilee,” his new album marking fifty years since his “Golden Vanity” debut, and is out September 25th on Topic Records, with contributions from Greg Leisz, Zac Hobbs, Liz Hanks, Louis Campbell, and Ben Nicholls.

Jarrett Gilgore and Anthony Pirog’s “Between The Earth and Where” is a fine tributary to this great river of human achievement, compelling in its subtle warmth and discreet lyricism. Pirog’s guitar forms finely latticed patterns for Gilgore’s sensuous blowing; dreamy saxophone flutters and spirals at the edge of consciousness. Two empathetic and exploratory young men playing a delicate, nocturnal blues.

Featuring Ríoghnach Connolly, watch the accompanying video for ‘Curlew Song’, the new single from Clare Sands, taken from her upcoming album ‘They Tried to Bury Us’, out on October 9th. The album is a collection of songs that gives voice to the silenced: from the endangered curlew to those seeking refuge.

Falmouth’s Blind Yeo follow Cornwall’s tradition of wonky inventiveness on “The Lemoine Point,” which surges with baked, euphoric Krautrock riffs and pantheistic ancient worship. Founded by singer/guitarist Will Greenham, the loose collective is based out of The Cornish Bank, the Falmouth venue Greenham co-founded. Blind Yeo are doing more than most to keep Cornwall weird.

On his second album, “Mudlark Ballads”, Dublin singer Macdara Yeates unearths little-known relics of the city’s musical history, his arrangements more confident and varied than on 2024’s “Traditional Singing from Dublin”. His ability to capture the mood of a song is second to none; they are valuable treasures in his hands.