Displacement has always proved fascinating ground for musical expression, and M.I.A. (aka Maya Arulpragasam ) has probably had the most nomadic year of her life prior to the release of Kala, her second album. Relatively homeless and free to globe trot, Maya used a US visa rejection to her advantage, creating Kala in studios as disparate as London, Mumbai and Darwin. That wandering, meandering worldly mentality reigns supreme on Kala, but what rings true more so is the stark voices from the ghettos of the globe, which Maya triumphantly represents. There’s a sense of universal ‘fuck you’ that transcends borders and language throughout.

For a moment it looked like another one had bit the dust, as Maya sought the help of pop music’s mainstream auteur Timbaland to dilute her gritty sonics on the follow up to 2005’s blistering Arular. Thank god for the overly paranoid folk in US customs and immigration who denied Maya a working visa, otherwise we might have ended up with another Promiscuous Girl and not this expansive, truly mesmerising work, which is serious contender for album of the year.

On Kala, M.I.A. continues her role as musical voice of the discursive ‘insignificant’ other. That emerging third world that she gloriously and unashamedly aligned herself with on Arular has moved from her own Sri Lankan heritage to encompass the peoples of the Asian sub continent, West Indies, Africa and even Aboriginal Australia. If displacement is a strong concept on Kala, so is subversion; opener Bamboo Banger takes garage/punk music’s templatative anthem Road Runner and scratches it viciously with steel drums and primitive electro clangs, Maya drawling “Road runner, road runner going hundred miles an hour, it’s a bamboo banger it’s a jungle banger. Road runner, road runner”.

The poignantly titled Bird Flu sounds joyfully alien, like a Bengal market cluttered with deep congas, monkey whistles and children laughing, Maya grabbing your hand and whisking you through the chaos. The relentlessly catchy Boyz harbors dark messages about patriarchy; “How many boys are crazy, how many start a war?” Maya shimmies behind swooping shadows of bass and sheets of steely rhythm. Jimmy, a Bollywood cover of sorts, is all swinging gypsy strings and Ganges disco house, with Maya getting as close to singing a ballad as you will hear. The exquisitely dirty Hassle, featuring MC Afrikan Boy and possibly the baddest synths on record, is dripping with primal sexuality and menace. The tight Didge groove of Mango Down Pickle is my pick of the bunch; a dusty, raw hip hop cut featuring the pre-adolescent rhymes of the Wilcannia Mob from Darwin which blows any antipodean hip hop well out of the water.

808 pings ring out like Kashkolnikov rounds through trenches of bass with Maya’s urgent, rapid fire lyrics on $20, while the dubstep grit of Down River gets the London massive swinging from the balustrades. XR2 comes across all skeletal and moody as Maya mumbles about pills and thrills, until producer Switch unleashes the handclaps and wailing synth trumpet to rustle up a dizzying old school Ragga rave jam. The contemplative, soaring Paper Planes sounds almost like an homage to Ari & The Slits, with hair raising gun shots and cash registers ringing into a sonic oblivion; “I’ve got more records than the KGB” Maya slurs as a chorus of girls croon from the maelstrom with her.

So politically astute and, inevitably, socially relevant is Kala, that it rises above issues of longevity to be a colorful yet eerie postcard from dark and urgent times. Musically it is invigorating and all encompassing, with every track holding its own (except for the closing Timbaland collaboration that seems out of place). Kudos must be given to Switch, who weaves a dazzling tapestry of sonics throughout, but it’s Maya’s show and as a voice for the global massive her place in modern music is not only assured, it’s vital. Devastating.

Intrigued? Check out the clip for M.I.A.’s new single Jimmy.