Pick of the Week

Cake

Think "Stand By Your Man" as performance poetry, backed with a somnambulant George Clinton's rhythm section cut up by the Beastie Boys. It's country, it's funky, it's shambling half-sung lounge music that once met Cole Porter and went on a day trip to a French record shop's listening booth in 1973. As if transforming the seemingly irredeemable disco anthem "I Will Survive" into a deadpan, hip-swinging groove weren't enough - by the end of the gig, will have charmed the audience into doing a passable imitation of Russian liturgical chanting. Eclectic references be damned; this is a glorious rag-bag of noise.

support Counting Crows tonight at the Shepherd's Bush Empire; their album 'Fashion Nugget' is out now Mark Wilson