The wild west of France plays host to Immanuel Wilkins, Henri Texier, Ava Mendoza and Swedish power-horners Angles

Most readers won’t be familiar with the Atlantique Jazz Festival, but this engagingly varied six-dayer has now reached its 20th edition, out on the far-western French coastal outpost of Brest. Raindrops and blustery winds govern for most of the time, but Atlantique’s main venue is down in the steaming basement of the old Hotel Vauban, in a venue which has a rich history, stretching back to 1962, its walls ranged with old photographs of energised gigs.

The Brest crowd seems noticeably lively, bringing an edge not seen at most jazz festivals, just the right side of bad behaviour. This brings a suitable tension to the hot-wired set by Angles (pictured above), the Swedish combo that inserts hardcore improvisation into a surround of bullishly riffing horn themes. Angles lurk with the prominent vibraphone of Mattias Ståhl, leading a drunken crawl-pace of woozy lounge euphoria. Trumpet, alto saxophone and trombone (the latter instrument completely submitting to the agile power of the phenomenal Mats Äleklint) conjoin in a lugubrious huddle. The acoustics are wonderful, down in the Espace Vauban. Bandleader Martin Küchen shoots out a shaking alto solo of finely controlled bleating, underpinned by the vibesman with the greatest amount of compulsively luminous rifflines, anywhere around the globe. Küchen shouts out encouragement for Ståhl’s low chiming embellishments. Can the slinking get much sleazier, in this noir jazz den? Äleklint answers with a compulsively beefy ‘bone emission, sounding like freely improvised Mexican wedding ruptures. These are the heavy horns of Sweden, sent to blend ramming power with imagination and sensitivity.

Earlier in the evening, New Yorker guitarist Ava Mendoza played a solo set, operating from a deserted bluesy base, but filling her sound with ambient textures, rocky rifflets and abstract nods to freeness. When singing, Mendoza also uses a blues springboard, and this solo outlet offers an alternative side to her jazzier group work. Landscapes are evoked via horizon reverb, bending and embellishing notes with real-time layering of chords, bass phrases and curlicue treble. Mendoza’s sound increases in vastness when loops are deployed. She bathes the audience in a sound that may well spring from time being inspired by Neil Young, Daniel Lanois, Billy Gibbons and Prince. Link Wray is rolling in there too. Mendoza is more Detroit, Michigan than Paris, Texas, getting heavier in a spiral staircase ascension.

The Immanuel Wilkins Quartet played Vauban the night before. This is the third time that your scribe has witnessed this alto saxophonist from Philadelphia, and Wilkins sounds better each time. He’s more subtle at first, and the basement has a cushioning surround that suits his horn well, as Wilkins lightly navigates his speed-runs. Drummer Kweku Sumbry makes a machine gun trap-attack, while Matt Brewer opts for running bass. Having previously caught Wilkins in a concert hall, then an open-air stage, your scribe can conclude that the altoman sounds best in this club environment. Next up is a shimmering bluesiness, ‘Everything’, with talkative horn, hissing cymbals, rationed bass notes and soft gospel piano from Micah Thomas. The quartet lies in deep thought. Sometimes, Thomas will sit out, shifting the dynamic, and when the bass quits, it’s just an alto and drum tussle.

Keen to couple unlikely bedfellows, the festival had Five 38 open for Wilkins. This is the fairly extreme improvising duo of Rafaelle Rinaudo (electric harp) and Fanny Lasfargues (electric bass), although clearly the structures of their compositions are worked out already. Heady effects cling to all parts, shaping an industrial-strength soundscape. The band name refers to the number of strings at their mercy.

Three days later, reedsman Robin Fincker and violinist Mathieu Werchowski played another duo set, this time totally improvised. Their early evening gig took place in La Turbine, the festival’s headquarters, its intimate performing space having the look of a small art gallery. Completely acoustic, and totally exposed, they explored realms not often touched inside free improvisation, hinting at Irish folk tones amidst their rising patterns. The pulsations were ornamented, as they staggered their phrases, although sometimes coinciding sharply, almost swinging, as Werchowski strafed in a manner that suggested classical or gypsy phrases, perhaps with Bartok in mind. Fincker moved from clarinet to tenor saxophone, his raw reed attack making the duo’s second piece more broken and fidgety.

Kill Your Idols are a potentially marching band, mostly horned (with a baritone overload), but with doubled percussion. At the Ateliers des Capucins (an arty and massive shopping centre) they revisited the Sonic Youth repertoire, although frankly not many songs were recognisable. Was that a ghost of ‘Kool Thing’? Even so, they enthusiastically rattled out a rebellious racket, perched between heavy rhythm and squalling outbursts, magnetising kiddies, jazzers, shoppers and loiterers, on this portside-industrial stage.

Atlantique presents a clear love for improvising extremity, but is also attuned to core jazz, as well as including a pair of global-folk bands, reaching from local Breton tradition (Triptyque) to Occitan songs and beyond, to the Spanish-speaking lands (Maar). Nearly every gig looked like it was at full capacity.

Heure Magnétique is a series of three lunchtime gigs and one early evening set, happening at Bouguen University, and devoted to free improvisation, with line-ups of accidental collisions. There’s also a soup kitchen for students, to entice them towards this strange and abstract zone. The performances were remarkable, featuring unusual instrument combinations and radically varied sonic vistas. A particular highlight was the set with local player Christophe Rocher (clarinets), plus Morgane Carnet (baritone saxophone), Christian Pruvost (trumpet) and Fanny Lasfargues (electric bass), which revelled in low tones, highly arranged in spontaneous fashion, these artists playing like they were born to form a band together.

The festival finished with a Henri Texier Trio set of the expected high quality. This veteran bassist (above) is playing a lot nowadays, in various-sized outfits. His set might remain stable in its contents, with a combination of originals and elegant standards (‘Besame Mucho’, ‘’Round Midnight’), but the interpretations always sound fresh, and Texier has a twinkle-eyed sense of humour. The trio also benefits, as ever, from core members Sébastien Texier (reeds) and Gautier Garrigue (drums), always on excellent form. This was a fine way to close out this variegated programme of largely winning concerts.