M.I.A. has shared a new, low-fi video for a previously unreleased song, ‘Reload.’
The track was written in 2004 with Elastica’s Justine Frischmann, ahead of the release of M.I.A.’s debut album, ‘Arular’ a year later.
The song appeared on M.I.A.’s documentary MATANGI / MAYA / M.I.A. which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. You can watch the video here:
In September, M.I.A. spoke about the impact Frischmann had on her early career. Frischmann met M.I.A. in 1999, and the pair would later share an apartment together, with the former Elastica front woman credited as a co-writer on ‘Arular’.
“Elastica’s first album was huge, but she retired at 25 and I met her in her late 20s”, M.I.A. told NME. “She was the best person to meet because this was a woman who was so tough that she kind of said, ‘Fuck it, I’m only going to make one record and call it a day’.”
“I did convince her [to carry on]”, she continued. “I was like, ‘You should do this, you should do this’. I was constantly convincing her, but she was no longer in love with the music industry. That was not what gave her joy.”
Recommended
Speaking of what insight this gave her, M.I.A. reflected: “Learning what she felt and what she had gone through was helpful to me. I learnt not to have a band because Justine had so many band issues. I thought I couldn’t be in a band because bands break up – if you just rely on yourself you’ll be alright.”