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Some day, all record label executives will operate like Camilo Lara. By day he's the managing director of EMI Mexico; by night he's the one-man Mexican Institute of Sound hawking an intriguing soundclash, which has room in its bones for slo-mo hip-hop, bastardised ragga samples and an assortment of Latin licks. Piñata, Lara's second album, is a robust construction, where his own ability to deseed and deconstruct the more off-kilter parts of his record collection are combined with the buffed technical suss of Le Hammond Inferno's Holger Beier. There are other guests, but it's the core duo's pot of infectious glue that binds this one together. Be it Hip Hop No Pares, which strings a monster groove together from some full-fat ragga samples, or super-sized romps such as Para No Vivir Desperado and Killer Kumbia, this is chockablock with likeable mischief and effective sonic collisions. www.myspace.com/ mexicaninstituteofsound    JIM CARROLL

Download tracks:Para No Vivir Desperado, Hip Hop No Pares