M.I.A. announced that she's prepping a three-song mixtape and accompanying short film in typically subversive fashion Monday night: with an email screenshot on Instagram. And judging by the picture's caption, she slipped it under her label's radar: "It's real! Here's my press release you know that same time as my label."

The British performer's been working on new music throughout the year, with tracks like "Can See Can Do" and the paranoid "Platforms" living briefly on her SoundCloud account before being pulled down. The mixtape will constitute her first release since 2013's Matangi, a colourful stew that won many critics over but sold poorly.

It remains to be seen if the short film's "journey around the planet" will have anything to do with the video M.I.A. tweeted about in May, a clip she said was being held back by her label because of appropriative concerns regarding its filming in the Ivory Coast. In any case, fans are now holding tight for new music from one of pop's foremost contemporary provocateurs.