Listen: Azealia Banks & Lil Internet Get “Heavy Metal And Reflective”

Azealia Banks’ “ATM Jam” Music Video

If you haven’t spent the past couple of days blasting Azealia Banks ‘ new single “ Heavy Metal And Reflective ,” change that now.

Arriving on iTunes on July 28th via her own label, Azealia Banks Records, the song is the first new material we’ve heard from the venomous Harlem rapper since she gained her freedom from Interscope earlier this month.

“I be getting several, you be settled / Bet you pressed bitch,” she raps over the bouncy Lil Internet -produced track. “I be looking very heavy metal and reflective…”

“Heavy Metal And Reflective” follows a ferocious “Yung Rapunxel” (2013) as the second single from Azealia’s longgggggg awaited debut studio album, Broke with Expensive Taste , which is pending a new release date.

Last expected to be released in March 2014, the album suffered several push backs, and it seemed the height of Azealia’s career would be her multiple Twitter beefs .

“I made the beat for ‘HM&R’ in London—,” said Lil Internet, who also produced “Yung Rapunxel.” “I was there working in the studio with Azealia and Machine Drum, and me and Machine Drum would drink a whole bottle of whiskey every day, working on beats and playing each other what we were making.”

He went on to tell V Magazine :

“Anyway, there was this really loud fan in the bathroom of the studio, and every time I was in the bathroom I’d kind of rock out to the sound of this bathroom fan, this vibrating drone sound with a life of its own. Finally, I brought my laptop into the bathroom and recorded the fan. I took the sample of the fan and tuned it. So that weird rising and falling pad sound—people have actually mentioned on messageboards how crazy and cinematic of a sound it is—that sound is literally the fan in the bathroom of the studio in London.”

“I try to use unconventional samples a lot. With how near-limitless production is now with endless softsynths, effects, and plug-ins, the next logical step is to transcend conventions of what an instrument is entirely. I love the vast feeling of freedom that comes from treating literally everything in the entire world as part of your sound palette and as a potential instrument. I used a lot of found sounds and objects in ‘Yung Rapunxel’ as well, but not quite as musically as I did in “HM&R.” I listen to a lot of industrial music—Skinny Puppy is a big favorite of mine—and I think using found sounds and objects has always been a part of that genre, so I like continuing in those footsteps but applying it to pop music. The change in perception that comes from thinking of any sound as a possible instrument is truly incredible. Once you start thinking like that, walking down the street, really anywhere you go becomes an immersive symphony. It’s such a simple change in cognition that makes your perception so much richer.”

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