Distrito Federal

Camilo Lara is a busy man – music supervisor for Disney's Coco, founding member of Mexrrissey and Compass, perennial collaborator – but he always comes back to Mexican Institute of Sound, a project that he started in 2005, taking a hip-hop approach of beats, sampling and scratching to Mexican folk music. On his sixth album the formula hasn't changed a lot, it's still just as powerful but it has been refined and there's a healthy cynicism to boot. This is most clear on album standout ‘My America is Not Your America’, a biting critique of the treatment of migrants in the US that starts off with a simple beat before layers of guitars and vocals, some courtesy of Blur's Graham Coxon, give it visceral bite.

The journey of migrants to the US is mapped on ‘Cruzando el Rio’, but most of the album is more specific in its portrayal of life in Mexico City, the Distrito Federal of the title, synth-heavy opener ‘Se Compran’ borrowing phrases from street hawkers, and some of Mexico's finest cuisine popping up on the delirious cumbia ‘Dios’. Part of the album's charm is the languid pace of its songs, which evolve in unusual ways and burrow their way into your head.