27.02.24
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Welcome back to Selections, a series of artist-curated playlists from those in the know.

As one of the co-founders of NAAFI, Lao’s impact on the contemporary club landscape is indelible. Something which the DJ and producer further consolidated with his recent debut album Chapultepec.

Inspired by Mexico City’s largest park of the same name – which means “grasshopper hill” in Nahuatl – Lao’s expansive 19-track release honours the city and its electronic music scene through the celebration of the park and its history, built some 600 years ago by the texcocan Tlatoani Nezahualcóyotl. Through this leafy motif, Lao crafts percussive, textural dance cuts that take on an organic, bustling life of their own – capturing both the vibrancy of the park space, known as Mexico City’s lungs, and a raw, hypnotic rave-fuelled energy.

For his Selections playlist, Lao digs into the ongoing NAAFI legacy; in his own words, these are “some of my favourite tracks to understand the NAAFI sound as part of the deconstructed and leftfield club music of the 2010s”. Featuring tracks from Lotic, Santa Muerte, Bok Bok, NKC and more, he adds that this playlist “can be used as a guide to understand today’s underground club DJs from Latin America.”

Chapultepec is out now via NAAFI