Bad With Phones is not the life of the party on his tweaked-out new single Don’t Talk To Me — showcasing today on Tinnitist.
Re-emerging after a two-year hiatus, the enigmatic artist — who spans genres with his shroomified blend of weirdo pop, rap, spoken word, R&B and indie-electro — is back with a trippy hit somewhere between indie-pop and electro-rap, propelled by scratchy post-punk guitars. It is an incredibly infectious psychedelic rap sermon of ‘blah blah blah’, yearning to escape from a trashed, early-hours house party. Bad With Phones also drops a short-form visualiser here of himself performing the track, unapproachable yet alluring, trapped in that party.
Bad With Phones, aka Manny a vocalist, guitarist and frontman from Deptford, comes complete with a new character in pink wig and shades, evolving from his Marinade mixtape era and underground hits ON1 (over 1.6 million streams), Refrigerator and Monica, to announce the release of his debut album Crash, due July 12.
Crash is a collection of 10 epic songs that are Manny’s journey made into art, a narrative arc of highs, lows and ultimate redemption in what he describes as ‘my sonic therapy session’. The album is low key hypnagogic and soaked in bliss and damage, with standout tracks like DennisRodman, Devils, Drive, Emmanuelle and the exhilarating Ticket. Crash is packed with intimate anthems, gnarly love songs and comedown soothers for the day after a mangled night and to quote an album lyric will ‘come triple XL with the vibes’.
Bad With Phones’ name was born out of Manny’s six-month phone-free experiment. Following the debut EP Bang Bang Chicken in 2018, he was hailed as one to watch in 2021 on the release of Marinade. Another few singles and an EP Living & Surfing & Remixing followed in 2022, but a near-death experience explains the two-year hiatus. The Crash album cover features a hired Jeep, destroyed, on a volcanic landscape. Frazzled and needing a break, Manny flew to Lanzarote with a girlfriend. But once on the island, there was a devastating car crash, from which they both miraculously emerged unscathed.
“I was in a weird space, doubting if I could deliver an album,” Manny says. “It was really a hasty decision to go away. I should’ve stayed home doing my work, figuring out how I’m gonna do the music. It gave me the answer in a weird, dramatic way. I felt like a stunt man for life. It gave me a new drive and sense of purpose and allowed me to see where I needed to be and what I need to prioritise. The single is about those parties you end up stuck at for too long, having aimless conversations. Crash is a journey, each song plays a part in the buildup, crash and recovery. It’s like my sonic therapy session, I’m glad to get it out of my head and I hope people can relate.”
Check out Don’t Talk To Me above, hear more from Bad With Phones below, and follow him on Instagram and TikTok.
