Yak Turn Skiffle Song Into Psych Epic

Words: Linn Branson

We've all heard remixes and covers of an artist's work aplenty: a few twists and tweaks on the original, but still always sounding pretty much identifiable as to what they started out as.

Now take London three-piece Yak, who are building up their reputation as one of the most innovative of bands to emerge in the last few years. You may not be old enough to remember old skifflemeister Lonnie Donegan's 'Cumberland Gap' from the 50s - itself based on a 19th-century Appalachian folk song - all two-minutes of it, but Yak's extended, reshaped psychedelic 10-minute work is audacious and electrifying;  with Oli Burslem's feverish deliverance on vocals and guitar working the whole work into a swirling hypnagogic triumph.

With 'Hungry Heart' at the start of the year, all we could say was "wow!" Now all we can just about manage is: "Bloody amazing!"