Listen: M.I.A. "UNBREAK my Mixtape."

This is what M.I.A.'s version of "lover's rock" sounds like.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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You might assume, based on M.I.A.'s past output, that her idea of a breakup song would be noisy and in-your-face and possibly full of gunshot sounds. But this track, the latest from M.I.A.'s upcoming album, Matangi, suggests that Maya's breakup procedure might be one already familiar to plenty of '90s indie rock kids: namely, making a mixtape.

Tagged "soft," "lovers rock" and "break up songs," the song works in three samples (among them Blur, Karen Dalton and a version of "Wishing On A Star") as an illustration of its central lyrical theme about one lover making a mixtape for another to prepare for taking a break. It's a mixtape within a song, which gives it a jerky, disorienting feel as it turns the conventional pop chorus on its head. In true M.I.A. fashion, it confuses at first before becoming familiar.

Check it out below. Matangi is out November 5.

[via Pigeons & Planes]

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