ON AN autumn Saturday soon, clubbers will see a procession of 14 bands trying to make music as they slip and slide on the laughing-gas canisters traditionally discarded in nightlife Dalston when the weekend queues start to form.
The bands will coalesce in Gillett Square around midnight on Saturday 17 October 2015 to play together as the Match and Fuse Orchestra.
A party will follow at the Vortex, the club at the bottom of Gillett Square (pronounced with a hard G, incidentally: nothing to do with the soft-G French-origin name Gillette).
Jazzer Dave Morecroft will be in charge of the gathering, which is to mark the climax of Match and Fuse, a festival of, in its own words, “thrash, improv, electronica, vocals — progressive music from the UK and European underground scenes… it’s all about energy, edge, experimentation and straight-out roaring enthusiasm”.
Performers include Leafcutter John (Polar Bear) with Swedish composer-singer Isabel Sorling, Ju Meets Moster (visual-accent-lovers, press link), Pyrenean jazz-punkster Alfie Ryner, Ireland’s the Alarmist, Bristolian jazz rockers Get the Blessing will launch their new album at Rich Mix on Friday October 16. The music-literate Time Out liked this Portishead-affiliated outfit.
The formerly right-on magazine once would also have loved that the festival is trying to escape the male domination of left-field music by booking Björk collaborator Laura Moody, singer-violinist-songwriter Alice Zawadzki (photo attached) and trumpet player/composer Laura Jurd and saying it has “aimed at booking at least 25 per cent female musicians”.
Plenty of get-out there, but the thought counts, eh?
As well as the Vortex, three venues — Rich Mix, Café Oto and Servant Jazz Quarters — will host the fest. For programe and details, see link below.
Hamish Scott 250915
* Match and Fuse, London, Thursday 15 October-Saturday 17 October 2015
* Backstory: Jazzing up Gillett Square; Stop laughing
* Emboldened underscored words in most cases indicate a hyperlink, a reader service rare among websites. If a link does not work, it is probably because the site to which the URL refers has not been maintained. Most photographs can be visually enlarged by pressing on them.