M.I.A. "Kala" (2007)
Funnily enough I watched the doco/film about Mathangi
Arulpragasam (M.I.A.) a week or so after I listened to and wrote this one up - which would have saved me a
bit of reading time, but just digging around a bit and yeah she's had
an interesting life. She grew up in Sri Lanka during the civil war,
surrounded by violence. When she and her family moved to the UK she
found herself surrounded instead by racism.
Arulpragasam actually started her artistic career as a visual artist.
She was becoming a respected artist in her own right when Elastica took
her on board to do artwork for one of their albums. She went on tour
with them to do some filming, and the tour opener artist Peaches
encouraged her to make music. Elastica singer Justine Frischmann
provided her a sequencer/drum-machine and Arulpragasam started putting
together some demos, adopting the stage name M.I.A.
Frischmann's manager helped her secure a record contract and M.I.A.
released her first album. That was my first introduction to her, with
the videos for "Bucky Done Gun" and "Sunshowers" getting a bit of play
here in NZ. BDG in particular wasn't really like anything I'd heard
with its beats, minimal arrangements, stabs of horn and raps.
"Kala" mostly follows in this vein, mostly focussing on beats without
too many instruments arranged over the top of it. Just there to underline M.I.A.'s
vocals. There are samples of South Asian music and (just to mix things
up) the Clash, with that band's "Straight to Hell" being used to create
the brilliant "Paper Planes". "Bird Flu" is all sorts of percussion wonderfulness, "Jimmy" is a bit more electro-pop.
Great album, though I would say I was less impressed by the artist behind the art after watching the film. 😕
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