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Danny Neill, alongside photographer Sophie Reichert, spends four days at Larmer Tree Gardens as End of the Road turns twenty, still sailing against the mainstream tide. YHWH Nailgun open with a sonic assault, Geese headline to an 80% approval rating, Ty Segall gets seen twice in one day, and ØXN spray-paint a space for folk tradition with murder ballads and drone-enriched codas.

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.

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.

Spell Songs’ third studio album, In Thin Air, is a creative reaction to Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris’s The Book of Birds. Fifteen songs deal with different aspects of avian life, from nest-building to migration, building up a noticeable narrative thrust. Again and again, this album cleverly conflates the lives of birds with human experience. It is an album in constant fluttering movement, one that soars and sings.

Mama’s Broke’s Amy Lou Keeler and Lisa Maria discuss “Reunion,” their latest album, one of stark emotion and stunning but subtle playing. Born from Nova Scotian roots, Appalachian tradition and Eastern European influences, their deliciously dark folk resists easy labels. The pair talk origins, co-writing, folk as political expression, and the collective feeling that keeps their collaboration fresh after a decade on the road.

On “Reunion”, Mama’s Broke’s third album, Amy Lou Keeler and Lisa Maria touch the darkest aspects of human life with openness and admirable musical originality. The Nova Scotia duo weave Appalachian and Eastern European traditions into songs that touch on economic inequality, violence against women, and stunningly beautiful, lyrically enigmatic ballads in the spirit of Time (The Revelator)-era Gillian Welch. They find something worth saving in the dark.

“Sam Carter Sings Nic Jones,” recorded live at Celtic Connections, is a faithful, generous tribute to one of the UK’s finest folk musicians. Carter knows these songs inside out, and he delivers them with a real passion, as well as the care they deserve. It’s a record that hands the tradition on, proof that the cycle of folk music and storytelling is in good health.

Lady Maisery and Jimmy Aldridge & Sid Goldsmith return with “Wakefire: A Summer Album”, a full-scale double album that trumps its predecessor in both ambition and reward. Presented as a largely chronological account of summer, twenty-seven tracks might sound like something of a throwback in today’s climate of instant gratification, but they make it seem like a revolutionary act, and a hugely gratifying one at that.

On Emily Portman’s fourth solo album, she weaves a tapestry of complex lyrical themes and intricate musical arrangements. Of all the singers and songwriters in British folk music, few have the ability to encapsulate what it means to be human in the way that Portman does. “Dominion of Spells” is a real and vital piece of work, something to be cherished.

“…an album that flits so easily between past and present, whose songs encompass fluttering beauty and quietly looming presences.” The Little Winters is an album worthy of the clàrsach, with all its historical and cultural importance, and Anna McLuckie, with her clear voice, poetic songwriting and precise, fluid playing, has announced herself as one of British folk music’s most formidable talents.

Jim Moray — folk music’s errant prince — returns with Gallants, his eighth solo album. Traditional ballads are teased into stunning new shapes, the self-penned Three Gallants fits seamlessly among them, and the imposing Omie Wise drips with pathos and tenderness. A stunning closer backed by Maddie Morris and the Trans Choir seals an uncompromising, deeply immersive collection.

Many of the songs on Joshua Burnside’s “It’s Not Going to Be Okay” can disarm you or take your breath away from their very first lines. Burnside is the most consistently human and the most surprising of songwriters. Details spring out at you like spiders from the cracks between floorboards. Meteors and energy-efficient light bulbs, blackbirds and bears, spaceships and Peugeots. The profound and the quotidian occupy the same arena.