maybe globalisation isn't so bad after all. here we have a sri-lankan born refugee living in britain, playing cut & paste with modern society, picking and choosing genres and countries of music and toying with the very essence of their sounds. it's plastic, colourful and beautiful in an indescribable way, when i heard that m.i.a. had been a visual artist before pursuing a career in music i wasn't in the least bit surprised; arular is an aural sketchbook, a rich, worldly melting-pot of modern music drawing from dancehall, hip-hop, bhangra and electro. being the postmodern fusion that it is, arular is full of contradictions, east meets west, a party record with a socio-political conscience, and strangest of all, this record is completely out of touch with what's happening in music today, yet at the same time this record is so undeniably 21st century. wether this is the future of music or merely an underground oddity i do not know, but i am certain that it will make your ears happy.