by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

Our cosmo-delic cover kids Acid Mothers Temple are just part of the musical menagerie spilling into quiet lil' Victoriaville again this year. Situated roughly halfway between Montreal and Quebec City, the tiny burg is a sort of avant-garde Brigadoon - for five days a year, it hosts the Festival international de musique actuelle de Victoriaville (Victo, for short), Canada's preeminent festival of thinky, thumpy, skronky, clicky, generally freaky and free-thinking music. Here are a few highlights from this year's selection:

Cyro Baptista: The FIMAV crew is the first to admit that they've given the world and folk music milieus limited attention in previous years. All is forgiven with this remarkable booking. Brazilian percussionist Baptista has snagged numerous jazz-rag awards and jammed with Paul Simon and David Byrne, Herbie Hancock and Brian Eno, Dr. John and Medeski Martin & Wood. His baby, though, is his large and lively Beat the Donkey project - at least eight performers from four continents, singing, dancing and of course drumming, mixing up sounds from all over the world in a hectic, zig-zagging world-beat fantasia. The TV version of this thing won a stack of Emmys. Come see why. At Colisée des Bois-Francs on Thursday, May 20, 10pm, $30

Christian Fennesz: Austria's Fennesz pops up twice this year. The Saturday show is a solo laptop jam that should show folks why this guy is a noted figure in leftfield electronica, thanks to his releases on the Mego label run by Peter "Pita" Rehberg who, joined by visual artist Tina Frank, splits this bill with Fennesz. The Sunday show sees Fennesz in quartet mode, playing off the treated guitars of the venerable Keith Rowe (a mad scientist of the six-string since the early '60s) and Australia's Oren Ambarchi, with Japan's Toshimaru Nakamura handling the mixing board. At Colisée des Bois-Francs on Saturday, May 22, 10pm, $30, and at Cinéma Laurier on Sunday, May 23, 8pm, $26

Vernon Reid & Masque: That's right, the guitarist from Living Colour. While LC have reformed, Reid's also got his Masque project going on, an instrumental quartet that takes the triangulation of rock, funk and jazz one step over the edge. Reid's particular style - slick and clean but also explosively unpredictable - is recognizable two bars into Known Unknown, the band's sophomore CD that includes a cameo from DJ Logic (sadly, the latter won't be up with them). At Colisée des Bois-Francs on Monday, May 24, 3pm, $30

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