Ever since Joanna Newsom waltzed onto the scene with her harp and set about combining pop, avant-garde experimentation, folk and traditional rhythms, to generally stunning effects, there's been a slew of like-minded classically trained female songstresses with squeaky voices following in her petit footsteps. Anni Rossi is one such squeaky soul - she's been described as a lot of things - including a cross between PJ Harvey and Paula Abdul - but don't let that particularly bizarre amalgamation colour your opinion.

Fifty-three years young, and still going from strength to strength, the Corona Cork Film Festival now ranks among the most vital, well-organised celebratory endeavours this country can lay claim to. Through good times and bad, the festival, by the will of its most ardent supporters and countless volunteers, has persevered though lean times. What has predominately emerged from this collective effort is a sense of identity, an acute awareness of what the festival wants and needs to be. What it strives to say and what it means to ask, not only about film, but about the things that inspire film. Because, after all, celluloid is only transparent without input. Without fingerprints, without emotions, without tales, without life.

Ritual, the first full length record from Jape since his 2004 cult favourite, The Monkey's in the Zoo Have More Fun Then Me, finally arrived earlier this year after our protagonist had spent many months on the major label merry-go-round, the release of some well received EP's and singles, numerous festival appearances, overseas tours, tons of flying fruit and a subsequent youtube phenomenon, not to mention Jack White's seal of approval. Thankfully he didn't let the side down.

The month of October sees Cork furiously grab, with both hands, its 'City of Festivals' crown back from those pretenders to the throne as Leeside braces itself for a flurry of both film and musical activity.

From the pen of Martin McDonagh, the writer who gave us the darkly comical and at times violently unsettling In Bruges, and the Oscar winning short Six Shooter, comes The Cripple of Inishmaan, another slice of coal-black humour and macabre cruelty delivered by a cast of eccentric island characters. The production sees McDonagh team up once more with frequent collaborators, the acclaimed Galway theatre company Druid, a relationship that stretches back to 1996 when they premièred McDonagh's debut work The Beauty Queen of Leenane. It's a working relationship that has proved prosperous for both parties in the years that followed.

Cats and Cats and Cats ply their trademark brand of hook-laden math rock with folk inspired post rock sections. Starting in early 2005 when friends Ben and Tom met Doug at the University of Hertfordshire, they were soon earning good reviews for their debut EP, Victorialand.

Circuses are strange, disorientating places at the best of times. And that's just from the audiences perspective. Under that big top when the lights go down and the haphazardly applied demonic face-painted grins are removed one wonders what exactly goes on. A child's perspective on the whole scene may be more about the candy floss, smiling animals and all manner of friendly pranks and antics. Mad Mabe and the Lost Girls isn't for children though.

The independent UK label FatCat Records is considered to be among the most forward thinking imprints out there today. Their ability to discover and nurture a multitude of diverse musical talents is well documented by a series of considerable successes.

As the son of one of world music's most influential figureheads, Seun Kuti has had to follow in some pretty large footsteps. His father, the renowned composer and activist Fela Kuti not only pioneered the musical styling of the Afrobeat movement but also became a powerful and influential voice in shaping its political context. However, Seun, the youngest son of Fela, has successfully emerged from his fathers considerable shadow to successfully carry the Afrobeat torch his father so famously lit all those years ago.

Dead Meadow have been slugging it out in the psych-rock trenches for 10 years now traversing through behemoth six-string, echo drenched fuzzed jams completely oblivious to the passing of time and trends. The group has always revealed in its own authenticity, effortlessly evoking the grizzled blues stomp of 70s hard-rock granddaddy's Black Sabbath and Blue Cheer while channeling the more esoteric jam-crazy hootenannies of the 60s psychedelic era.