If Susheela Raman didn't exist, it would be necessary for a world-music focus group to invent her. She's a non-resident Indian, raised in the UK and Australia, who studied classical Indian singing before teaming up with a guitarist-producer famed for his collaborations with Paris-based Africans. Raman and her main collaborator, Sam Mills, have now racked up three well-received albums with myriad collaborators from around the globe, the latest of which, Music for Crocodiles, is possibly her most commercial to date.

Live, she opts for a minimalist approach. A majority of the songs are accompanied by Mills on punchy acoustic guitar. Hilaire Penda adds mellifluous fretless bass to a handful of numbers. They perform the more modal songs, such as Chordiya, over a bansuri-like drone piped in via the mixing desk.

For the title track, Raman introduces an Ethiopian dancer who performs the most extraordinary moves over the song's 5/4 groove. This climaxes with some dazzling, high-speed head-waggling: all we see is a blur of dark hair.

Another guest is the much-loved Nigerian drummer Tony Allen, who plays on a couple of numbers, Idi Samavam (gentle folk-funk) and Sharavana (a slow, tedious jam). Though Raman enjoys letting her hair down on these more free-form numbers, the small ensemble lacks the improvisational flexibility to make them count.

Raman is at her best on short, focused songs such as What Silence Said, with its simple, affecting guitar accompaniment, and Meanwhile, which has a touch of Rikki Lee Jones. When she indulges a fan in the audience by playing Trust in Me (from Disney's Jungle Book), you're reminded of what good writers the Sherman brothers were - and of Raman's instinct for a good song, regardless of where in the world it comes from.

· At the Spitz, EC1, on October 28. Box office: 020-7392 9032. Then touring.