M.I.A. - Matangi

I like M.I.A, I like her a lot, and while she brings a wildly varying maelstrom of opinion breezing in wherever she goes, you can’t fault her for a lack of conviction. There’s been a many number of controversies that’ve made waves since we last had an album of hers on the scene - her spat with the New York Times, her ostensibly vicious marital difficulties, and of course that step on the landmine of American puritanism during her Superbowl appearance, but it would be cynical to see the torrent of media coverage, which has become an important pillar of the M.I.A. brand, as making up for a lack of substance on her part. At least, that’s the kind of thing I would automatically assume if I weren’t an M.I.A. fan (I’m bitterly untrusting like that). On the contrary, to me M.I.A. is all substance, and while her outspoken antics are part of the whole reason I do really like her, the oft-forgotten feature of Maya Arulpragasam, her music, is always excitingly newsworthy as well.

While it’s generally agreed that M.I.A.’s first two LPs, Arular and Kala, were solidly impressive slices of original bricolage electronica, not everyone was overjoyed with her last album, 2010’s Maya, particularly for its inclusion of dubsteppy grittiness (I mean, Rusko was brought in as a producer) that I don’t think gelled comfortably with most people. Pitchfork certainly didn’t like it. People were also quick to lambast M.I.A. for her then-ridiculous intro track The Message – ‘connected to the internet, connected to the Google, connected to the government’ – as being on the same intellectual level as nutty, chem-trail conspiracy theorists. I think that was probably the first conclusive victory in M.I.A.’s war against the world, for how wrong they were. But despite its position as a definite step down in quality, Maya was still really fucking good, even if its creator’s melting pot of creativity didn’t boil so sweetly as with the still-numinously-awesome Kala. In Matangi, M.I.A.’s still ranting, still raving, still making batshit crazy genre-bending worldbeat belters, and hasn’t lost a single shred of her magnetic confidence. The grimy aesthetic she took on in Maya still lingers, and will divide listeners as much here as it did then, and she’s still dabbling with currently-fashionable genres (giving a trap beat her best in Double Bubble Trouble), but her schizophrenic beat-hopping, supported by her ever-sarcastic rap-ranting, is still as bewitchingly unique as ever.

In getting everyone hyped for the new album, M.I.A. described it as Paul Simon on acid, as decent and concise a review as you’re gonna get, and the emphasis should be placed on acid. M.I.A. has a varied roster of producers at her command on Matangi, including longtime collaborator Switch as well as Hit-Boy and Doc McKinney, who produced the two best Weeknd albums. There’s even a track here – Exodus – which is simply Lonely Star with Abel Tesfaye removed and a rarely melodious vocal from Maya laid over the top, in a mildly unsuccessful and baffling decision on her part. But the production retinue all tow the line of M.I.A.’s unified sound of audial bric-a-brac, which from what we can ascertain from M.I.A.’s uncompromising public image, is understandable. I love to use the word ‘bricolage’ when describing M.I.A.’s tracks, and I think Come Walk With Me is the best example of this on this record, with its Apple Mac volume clicks and camera sound effects – it’s rough around the edges and completely bonkers, but I can’t help but be swept up in its pure creative enthusiasm. Warriors is a similarly bizarre but successful piece of work, with M.I.A. putting the wild variations from her vocal chords to good effect. I can fully understand the people who are turned off by the indulgent zaniness that this album’s built out of, but for me this is the most exciting thing about any new M.I.A. release – you really never know exactly what you’re gonna get.

There are two particularly soaring triumphs on this album – the first is Bad Girls, which we’ve all heard a billion times at UK nightclubs for nearly two years now, and it sounds just as shiveringly fantastic here as it did there – but the real killer app on this device is Bring the Noize. It’s just as much of a full-frontal assault as her other romances with volume, but where most other M.I.A. tracks are a hit-and-miss result of crazed experimentation, Bring the Noize is a track in which all its elements come together to create a cohesively awesome result. The tribal kick drums, the jelly-kneed vocal distortions, the distant chant, the rhythmic creaking sounds, I mean it’s just as crazy as ever, but it all works beautifully. Maya’s reverb-drenched rapping is at the forefront, and it actually sounds like she’s trying to rap here, which is a risky move considering that M.I.A. isn’t much of a rapper, despite what her befuddling Wikipedia page designates, but luckily, she pulls it off, and resultantly proceeds to exude pure concentrated coolness. And it all builds up to a terrifying crescendo, followed by a darkly paranoid ending, where ‘choose’ becomes a portentous syllable. It’s horrifyingly good. While we’re on the subject of club bangers, Y.A.L.A. has a shouty vocal hook that I originally found just the tiniest bit irritating, but as the swagger-stomping beat kicked in, I found myself falling for it. If M.I.A.’s having fun, I’m having fun, and Y.A.L.A. has M.I.A. at her piss-taking, crunk-as-fuck finest.

But probably the most interesting track here is Lights, a comparatively humble-sounding, laidback and drippingly psychedelic oasis from the rest of the album’s thumping energy. The girl who sings the moon-eyed chorus sounds like M.I.A., but can’t possibly be M.I.A. When did M.I.A. ever sound this relaxed? The sensation of the track is dreamily childlike and a hard-shouldered deviation from what we’ve all come to expect from its creator. In it, M.I.A. leaps between personas, alternating between shroomed-up and awestruck, chilled to the edge of cool, and frustratedly snarky, complaining brazenly to someone about something, the context of which escapes my understanding, but her exasperated, down-to-earth lyrical waxing through a leafy-green kaleidoscopic backing track forms one of the most surprising and startlingly different offerings from the old girl that any of us have witnessed in a while. I’m not sure what the mandate of the track is (except simply to blow off some important steam), but its invention sounds terrifically lush, especially coming after all that noisy electronic rug-cutting, and it’s worth a paragraph of its own just for its sheer uniqueness.

As with its predecessor, Matangi has its flaws. Double Bubble Trouble isn’t great; the beat is passable in its way, but the whole trouble/bubble rhyme slinging is pretty inane. The title track’s alright, but it’s rather on the uninspiringly dumb side of things as well; Only 1 U’s better solely for that bell sound effect, otherwise it’s proudly loud but unsatisfactorily dull. Also, M.I.A.’s lyricism isn’t her finest asset, and even for a fan like me, the manifesto/presto rhymes, the Lara Croft reference, the Drake references, the country-namedropping, yeah, it’s not fantastic, and these missteps are damaging, especially since I know she can do better than this. Even on this album, I can get behind the audacity of lines like ‘my blood type is no negative’ and the ridiculous entirety of aTENTion. But it’s interesting to note that, as an artist whose music will forever overlap with the world beyond it, and her own personal image, you can’t help but admire the fact that even when there are moments of failure, it never hurts M.I.A.’s rock solid image as an icon of no-fucks-given badassery. The illusion is never shattered. And even when she’s not at her best, M.I.A. will always be cooler than you. Matangi isn’t a brilliant album, but it’s a solid piece of work, with some really spectacular highlights, and even when she’s not hitting the seminal highs which brought her superstardom with Kala, she still has the distinction of not sounding like anyone else, and continues to concoct tunes from a mindset that is uniquely her own.

M.I.A. - Bring the Noize