Continuing the Roundhouse's Colour Your Summer season, during which the main part of the venue has been transformed into a more “intimate” environment, the experimental jazz quintet Polar Bear gave a performance of wry and often inscrutable charm. Led from behind by Seb Rochford - a drummer for whom the adage “speak softly but carry a big stick” could have been invented - Polar Bear are torchbearers of a new generation of jazz heads who grew up in the rock era. Their 2005 album, Held on the Tips of Fingers, was shortlisted for the Mercury Music Prize, and three members of the band - the saxophonist Pete Wareham, bass player Tom Herbert and Rochford - are also members of the acclaimed jazz-rock pioneers Acoustic Ladyland.

Polar Bear's show offered a spiky, squeaky alternative to conventional notions of melody and harmony, built on a nimble, and often unpredictable, rhythmic foundation. Showcasing material from the group's new, self-titled third album, the performance produced some challenging extremes. But at its most engaging it was a heady and even humorous experience. The two tenor saxophones, played by Wareham and Mark Lockheart, were augmented during Tomlovesalicelovestom by the sound of a balloon deflating noisily. The responsibility for this and other computer-generated effects rested on the shoulders of a young-looking chap called Leafcutter John, who played a kind of Brian Eno role in the group.

But at the heart of the matter was a bravura display of the traditional drummer's art by Rochford. His face framed by his trademark halo of hair, he drove the group on with a clattering blur of perpetual-motion rudiments around his compact but mightily resonant kit. Rochford's playing within the ensemble was so swift and restless that it was as if he was on a continuous virtuoso roll.

They ended with a fast and pleasingly accessible new song, Happy For You, after which the whole band looked stumped at the prospect of having to think of something else to play for an encore. It's a problem that isn't likely to disappear in a hurry.

Polar Bear play Buddah Bar, Derby, Sep 19

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