"hashtag IRL"

Throwing Shade is Nabihah Iqbal, a London-based producer of electronic music and a radio DJ, on the internet station NTS. She's known for wide-ranging sets that take in jazz, field recordings, vintage soul, experimental electronic, and whatever else she damn well pleases.

Until now, her music had suggested a particularly beatific take on electro-funk, with new age keys and dubbed-out voices over crisp drum programming. But here, on the first cut to come from her upcoming EP for Ninja Tune, Iqbal takes off the gloves and throws a little shade. The object of her derision is the social-media culture of the 21st century, and it plays out as an affectless voice reels off a steady stream of internet-centric terms—"Hashtag, get online, hashtag, OMG, LOL, WTF"—chopped up like so many syntax-free Instagram tags and dropped into a syncopated electro pattern.

If our dead-eyed narrator sounds familiar, that's no coincidence: It turns out that Iqbal was the voice behind SOPHIE's "Lemonade" and "L.O.V.E." as well. Here, the playful, almost innocent qualities of her voice are smoothed into an eerie, emotionless futurism—part customer-service rep, part THX 1138 confession booth. Paired with the track's gleaming chimes and pads, it's all rendered so dreamily you might almost miss the dystopian void lurking beneath it all. #LOL #whoops #tech #fail #future #grim