M.I.A. Has A Party In World Town

noah | August 20, 2007 1:34 am
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Every week, we round up the all-important, all-summarizing last sentences of the biggest new-music reviews. Today’s entry is M.I.A.’s Kala, which comes out tomorrow:

• “These are the noises kids make when they’re teaching themselves how to get their voices heard or that mothers make when they’re soothing their troubled little ones. They are the sounds that sustain and develop growth in a world fraught by violence and interruption. They’re just as important to M.I.A.’s art as hot beats or political messages. And by making sure they’re everywhere on “Kala,” M.I.A. makes her World Town teem with life.” [LA Times] • “Occasionally, she pushes her luck as well as the envelope. In 48 minutes, you get just two songs you might describe as having a tune: Jimmy, and the dreamy, Clash-sampling Paper Planes. You start out thinking it’s a brave and bracing decision, but by the time you reach World Town – which, instead of a melody, has a synthesized noise that sounds like a mosquito repeatedly dive-bombing your ear – you begin to question its wisdom. But, even at its weakest moments, Kala sounds unique – and, thrillingly, like an album that could only have been made in 2007, which is not something you can say about many albums made in 2007.” [Guardian] • “There’s a resolute sarcasm, a weariness and defiant determination, a sense of pleasure carved out of work — articulated by the lyrics, embodied by the music. A riot of human, musical and mechanical sounds bubbles underneath these tracks. Not a white riot, that’s for sure, and not a dangerous one either — unless you believe every Other wants what you got and has nothing to offer in return. Kala proves what bullshit that is. The danger is all the evil fools who aren’t convinced.” [Rolling Stone]

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