Brooklyn-based, Barcelona-born artist NOIA returns with ‘As Per My Last Email’, her first new music since 2023 debut album gisela. Turning the language of corporate communication into a brilliantly surreal portrait of modern burnout, the track explores what happens when being permanently available becomes less a working habit and more a way of life, gradually stripping away the line between human and machine.
Sitting somewhere between electronic pop, hyper-pop and experimental art-pop, ‘As Per My Last Email’ begins relatively slowly before steadily accelerating as the pressure mounts. NOIA’s vocal undergoes its own transformation alongside it; initially sounding drained and exhausted, her distinctive Catalan-accented delivery becomes increasingly frantic while robotic processing adds another layer of detachment. Electronics begin to glitch and collide, rhythms grow more restless and what started relatively controlled gradually descends into wonderfully frazzled chaos. It’s an incredibly effective piece of sonic storytelling, capturing the sensation of an overworked brain with far too many tabs open until the whole system finally begins to malfunction.
NOIA describes the track as “the slow collapse of hyperfunctionality”, where a person becomes “a broken, over-wired robot still sending polite replies”, and its magnificent accompanying video takes that absurdity even further. Office furniture is transplanted into forests and onto beaches as NOIA continues attempting to work, creating a world that is simultaneously dystopian, surreal and brimming with dark humour. Watching the boundaries between work, life, nature and machinery completely disintegrate feels ridiculous – until you realise just how little exaggeration is actually involved. ‘As Per My Last Email’ is weird, witty and increasingly unhinged, turning the horrors of being permanently “on” into one gloriously glitchy nervous breakdown.
