In that recent NME interview where M.I.A. cut-down Lady Gaga, she offered enthusiastic praise to her recent N.E.E.T. signees Sleigh Bells:

The new Sleigh Bells album epitomizes how kids are feeling in America –- so much energy, but nothing to do with it. Everyone wants you to be an apathetic consumer over there, so it’s cool to have some weird discomfort going on.

You get some of that energy in this punked/fuzzed/dubbed-out new track of hers, “Born Free.” It sorta sounds like Julie Ruin covering the Slits. Covering X-Ray Spex. Or, you can just say you feel the Sleigh Bells influence. Or you could mention she apparently wrote it with Suicide’s Alan Vega (or at least sampled him). All make sense.





“I don’t wanna talk about money, ’cause I got it.” No official word if this appears on her new still-untitled album due June 29 via N.E.E.T./Interscope, but it’s probably safe to at least assume that.