The idea behind Match & Fuse is so simple that you wonder why everyone doesn't do it. A young British act tours the UK with a likeminded band from, say, Italy; the Brits are then invited to tour on the Italians' home turf. Each band introduces its audience to its guests.
This ambitious two-day festival, following an all-dayer last year, features a host of freaky acts from around Europe who've taken part in these exchanges. UK jazz fans might already be aware of the slow-burning free bop of Adam Waldmann's Kairos Quartet, and the phenomenal, swaggering 22-year-old trumpeter Laura Jurd, who headlined a more cerebral session at the Vortex: they'll soon know drummer Corrie Dick, 21, who played with both bands, damn near stealing the show by fizzing and crackling with energy and ideas throughout.
But the visitors are every bit as impressive. Parisians Actuum play sharp, angular pieces in the style of Ornette Coleman; better still are Norwegians Mopti, a five-piece whose pieces are built on simple, pulsing double-bass lines, where the trumpet and tenor sax weave solos around glistening, Cocteau Twins textures provided by guitarist David Aleksander Sjølie.
The following evening, at the rockier, stand-up Shoreditch venue Rich Mix, the music is more id-driven. The headliners are Hackney's Led Bib, whose politely ecstatic punk-jazz is offset by Toby McLaren, who plays his Fender Rhodes through a bank of wobbly modulators and space-age FX units. Even better are Davide Martini's Ay!, three Italians in Hawaiian shirts who play an appealingly jerky mash-up of grindcore and samba that recalls Seattle's Morphine. There's also Polish prog-jazzers Jazzpospolita and Londoners Hot Head Show – the latter a chaotic "avant-bang" trio pitched between Stump, early Scritti Politti and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, fronted by guitarist and gibberish singer Jordan Copeland (son of Stewart).
It's an energising festival, and a rich smorgasbord of talent. It's also heartening to find a jazz gig where a 40-year-old is the oldest, rather than youngest, member of the audience.
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