Matthew Herbert is an artist with an axe to grind-here he takes on the food industry. A sample from the liner notes for “Celebrity”: “This track is made entirely from food endorsed by celebrities or tied in with a marketing strategy.” In the case of that song-driven by the lilting, mischievous vocals of Herbert‘s partner Dani Siciliano and a percolating pan-pipe melody-the rhetoric also rocks. But elsewhere the ideas and processes behind the music threaten to overwhelm the actual sounds. Plat du Jour is not easy to swallow, but that is precisely what makes it great. It would be easy to call the uneasy layer of politics that lurks behind the music the, ahem, icing on the cake. In reality, it‘s Herbert‘s willingness to ask questions, wave flags and actively choose how to live his life (and make music) that is the cake itself.