The grandiose-sounding Mexican Institute of Sound consists in fact of one man, Camilo Lara. He’s an office worker in Mexico City by day and, if the hype is to believed, musical alchemist by night, using only his computer and vast record collection. Méjico Máxico is a compilation of songs created between 2000 and 2005 and was originally released two years ago: this reissue consists of the original 15 tracks plus 8 bonus offerings that flow as if intended to be part of the initial release.

Purported to be the sound of the underground, the style is in fact quite familiar: think Nightmares on Wax (www.nightmaresonwax.co.uk/) meets The Avalanches (www.theavalanches.com/) with Hispanic stylings thrown in. Some of the songs themselves are familiar too: bonus track Lennin Y McCarthur is an instrumental breakbreak reworking of The Beatles’ Norwegian Wood, whereas Mirando A Las Muchachas is the old standard Music To Watch Girls By, chopped into snippets and trampled over by an insistent synthetic rhythm.

In a nutshell, Lara bases his songs around old horn/piano/guitar samples and saturates them with electronic bleeps, snatches of Spanish phrases and 1980’s computer game effects. As such, there’s no new ground being broken here but credit is due for the gamut of musical styles attempted;’ downtempo, dub reggae, hip hop and ebullient housey tunes all feature with the Latino thread running seamlessly throughout.

Méjico Máxico doesn’t take itself too seriously, retaining a sense of fun as evidenced by the roaring electro-camp of Cha Cha Cha (another bonus track) and the innocent childlike melodies prevalent throughout. There’s a carefree, sun-drenched feel to this (and God knows any help to get us through January is welcome) though the album struggles to rise above pleasant background fluff at times. An album for the feet as opposed to the head or heart, but its infectious joie de vivre shouldn’t fail to get at least some parts of the anatomy jiggling.