The dreamy synth-pop of Throwing Shade

Throwing Shade, AKA Nabihah Iqbal, is an artist who educates. Her background in history and ethnomusicology (in which she holds a degree from SOAS) heavily influences her bi-weekly NTS Radio show, where she weaves sounds from all over the world into a culturally rich sonic tapestry, exploding with colour and exposing listeners to the “weird and wonderful”. As well as this, she’s a producer whose wealth of musical knowledge shines through in each of her glittering compositions.

Her new EP released just last week on Ninja Tune is entitled House of Silk, with iridescent artwork that reflects the aesthetic qualities of her music – a hazy blur of sharp light and colour, like looking into soap bubbles. Her music is often described as “cosmic R&B” and “electro dream-pop”, and this collection of five tracks with metaphor-inducing titles stay true to those labels.

The opening track, ‘hashtag IRL’, is very PC Music-esque – a connection which makes sense considering she was revealed as the voice of SOPHIE’s ‘Lemonade’ earlier this year. Layers of bored saccharine vocals spell out internet acronyms like OMG, LOL, WTF that have become so ingrained in our language today. Iqbal describes this track as a commentary on the “anti-social reality of social media”, and the isolated “#please follow me” at the end perfectly encapsulates the desperate undertones of internet culture. However, it feels somewhat out of place, with the rest of the EP having a more coherent and gentle theme.

We need to be drowned in social media noise to avoid the silence of our supposedly insipid lives

‘Marble Air’ is a wavy piece with rippling synths and claps, evoking images of those iridescent soap bubbles taking flight. The lack of a concrete ending gives the impression of floating aimlessly, and the track generally has a celestial quality. ‘Ecco Echo’ features lilting acid-tinged synths that fade in and out of each other to create a dreamy trance-like rhythm, with clear Eastern influences. ‘Fear of Silence’ is the perfect continuation of ‘Ecco Echo’, as we sink deeper into the hypnagogic state. The title also reminded me of the sentiments expressed in ‘hashtag IRL’, where we need to be drowned in social media noise to avoid the silence of our supposedly insipid lives. Finally, the EP closes with the reverb-y chimes and silky humming of ‘Underneath My Eyelids’, where you feel as though you are gliding through an other-worldly house of silk. Like ‘Marble Air’, the track fades into the void – it doesn’t feel complete, but then maybe that’s the point. The listener is left out in the depths, in a state of calm perplexity.

Although it may not be as complex as some of her other work, such as the Fate Xclusive EP from 2015, House of Silk is still a beautiful embodiment of dreamy synth-pop from an artist who shows great promise and versatility.

The EP launch event is taking place on Thursday 10th March at a secret location in Dalston