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Whistles, microphone banditry and thundering percussion form the energetic backdrop to the band’s delivery of their distinctive brand of multi-stylistic world-folk music during this storming set at East London’s trendiest venue.

Rupa herself, centre-stage and dressed in black boots, white knee-high socks and colourful skirt and top, cuts an impressive figure with her spread of frizzy, dark hair. But what is more striking about Rupa & Co. on stage is that you see six musicians in the round, who, despite the non-stop party atmosphere, combine to deliver their punchy songs (mostly from recent release Este Mundo) with well-oiled ensemble playing, each adding to the band’s sound with their own distinctive musicianship.

Take trumpeter Marcus Cohen, for example. Instead of blasting away riffs like sidekick brass players tend to in upbeat bands, Cohen is a genuine jazz player, forming tight runs off Rupa’s vocals and never allowing flabby phrasing to take the bite out of his improvisations. Similar things could be said about each of the April Fishes, not least accordionist Isabel Douglass, whose gritty playing gives Rupa’s songs their gypsy flair.

In between numbers, Rupa took the time to explain a little more about the band’s global agit-pop outlook and tell the crowd a about the their US/Mexican border trip, inspiration for much of the music on Este Mundo, with its borderland themes and internationalist concerns. Appropriate perhaps that they finished with ‘Soy Payaso’ with its eastern tabla-style opening developing into a foot-stomping burlesque dance of epic proportions. Stirring stuff.