Celtic Connections, the annual festival of roots music held every winter throughout Glasgow, is the perfect pickup at a time when everything - the news, weather, bank statements, people's faces - seems designed to be as depressing as humanly possible.

This year it welcomes more than 2,000 musicians from around the world, with 18 days of shows at 17 venues across the city.

If you think only bearded, check-shirted folk fans can enjoy, prepare to think again: the line up includes classical, indie, jazz, Afrobeat and - yes - electronica artists, making for a delightfully diverse schedule.

One of the highlights each year is The Arches' Beat Bothy, which fuses folk and world music with banging dance beats: a winning combination if there ever was one.

This year's clash of genres has the veteran Londoners Da Lata, a seven-strong gang pumping out Latin and African-infused rhythms.

The Latin theme extends to La Chiva Gantiva: three Columbians who met in Belgium and spawned a sprawling, carvinalesque spectacle that brings together elements of rap, rock, punk and funk.

Supplementing these two are Scots collective Halcyon, the self-styled "electro-Celtic" pioneers.

While combining fiddling and techno beats hasn't brought anyone mainstream appeal quite yet, I'm sure it's only a matter of time before it catches on and these guys host the first ceilidh ever held on San Antonio beach. It has to happen.

Saturday night couldn't be more different.

€¢ Celtic Connections 2015: World Beat Bothy, tomorrow, The Arches, 9pm - 3am, £15

Simian Mobile Disco

Simian Mobile Disco wrote their latest album, Whorl, in three days and recorded it live in the middle of the Californian desert.

You can hear the unconventional process in the record's at-times vast, drifting moments, but they haven't forgotten how to write bangers, either.

Tomorrow the veteran English duo return to the Subbie to unleash some of their new stuff for the first time in Glasgow, and hopefully they'll drop in some of their mid-noughties classics as a special treat.

If you're after edgy, minimalist house rather than crowd-pleasing electronica, get down on Saturday for Lord of the Isles.

The alias of Scottish producer Neil Macdonald, this Subculture debut promises to be a party fit for an aristocrat.

Who probably, come to think of it, probably wouldn't be very interested.

Guaranteed to be no aristocrats at the Berkeley Suite on Saturday either, where Million Dollar Disco host their now-legendary annual boogie.

If you like dancing to disco tunes in a dark, sweaty basement then there is literally no excuse for missing this.

Don't even try to think of one, because they won't believe you.

€¢ iAM with Simian Mobile Disco, tomorrow, Sub Club, 11pm - 3am, £12

€¢ Lord of the Isles, Saturday, Sub Club, 11pm - 3am, £5/£10

€¢ Million Dollar Disco, Saturday, The Berkeley Suite, 11pm - 3am, £5

TYCI

The righteous feminist collective TYCI's first monthly night since Hogmanay is, predictably, shaping up to be excellent.

They're back in Stereo with the subversive songstress Zyna Hel playing her first ever Glasgow gig and grungy, lo-fi fuzz addicts Sharptooth, while local "apologetic pop" pioneers Tuff Love take over the decks afterwards.

For another dose of arty, off-kilter noise, check out Sweet Streams, tomorrow night at The Flying Duck.

It's a multi-disciplinary music, design and arts club with the chaotic electro outfit Apostille, one-man synthpop machine Shamgate and drone rockers Chump playing live. DJs The Dissolving Dancefloor, Fergus Clark and the Art School's Night of the Jaguar take care of the beats.

€¢ TYCI, Saturday, Stereo, 11pm - 3am, £5

€¢ Sweet Streams, tomorrow, The Flying Duck, 10pm - 3am, £5