#Song You Need: MAY’s scroll into oblivion

The FADER’s “Songs You Need” are the tracks we can’t stop playing. Check back every day for new music and follow along on our Spotify playlist.

MAY‘s “Phone Me” is a song to play when the weekly Screen Time report lands on your phone and you start to consider throwing the damn thing out of the window (or, at least deleting TikTok). Built around a template-like drum beat, MAY skips between vocal registers as she grapples with her addiction to scrolling and the moments when it becomes overwhelming. The dopamine surges as, face full of blue light, she sings “Know it excites me… She holds me tightly.” For a moment it feels as if all is well.

There’s an undeniable Rosalía-esque quality to MAY’s playful delivery, though “Phone Me” is a little less polished than the Motomami brand of experimental pop. A more apt comparison possibly lies with Jockstrap, with whom MAY has played live and shares a love of turning conventional songs inside out to expose their inner workings.

That is felt most keenly when “Phone Me” veers into sections reflecting a descent into a kind of mania, with reference to “running round in the garden” and being laughed out of the city she calls home. The switch between crunchy rap beats and the more serene string sections is seemingly used to reflect that feeling of scratching an itch in your mind. That endless cycle of refresh and repeat is what, perhaps ironically, makes the song so naggingly addictive.