Kala

Is M.I.A.’s sophomore album Kala my new favorite? Easily. Does every track blow my face off like those on her globally acclaimed debut, Arular? No. But when you’re pushing the worlds of electronica and rap out of their respective blueprints as energetically and almost single-handedly as the Sri Lanka-via-London jam-maker is, missing a beat with a couple of cold computer sounds and a smidge of bland eurodance hardly matters. Minds will be blown though, starting with “Bird Flu” (released online months ago) and its frantic crazy-making drumline and squawking bird rhythms. Moving to this “dance track” is akin to dancing to the beat of firecrackers in a kindergarten class, which is to say it’s fun as hell. Other highlights include the repetitive first single, “Boyz”; the four shots-and-cash-register rhythm in “Paper Planes” (“All I wanna do is [bang, bang, bang, bang … click … ka-ching] / and take your money); and the supremely chill “Mango Pickle Down River,” with a vertigo-inducing low-frequency didgeridoo foundation and summertime storytellin’ by M.I.A. and the barely teenaged Aboriginal rap crew The Wilcannia Mob (“Keith stole an egg from a li’l kookoo / Kept it safe in his mouth, while he danced the jookoo jookoo”).