Ones To Watch 2014 - #8 Banks

Los Angeles' Banks (her first name is actually Jillian but she never mentions that) is the next artist on the Breaking More Waves Ones to Watch 2014 list (and not to be confused with potty mouthed rapper Azealia Banks). Despite their being some fantastic new pop music hailing from the U.S, Australia, New Zealand and Scandanavia right now, we've decided to keep this list mainly UK based (after all that's where we're from), but we're making a sole exception with Banks. Regular readers will probably be quite surprised that we’ve never featured her until this point, as the style and sound of her music is analogous with much of what we choose to post. We’ve even seen her play live prior to this, which in the days of get it online before they’ve stepped on a stage / high speed internet blogging is quite a rarity.

Banks makes seductive, sultry electronic soul music that joins the dots between The Weeknd (who she’s supporting this week) Jessie Ware and James Blake. It’s all dark synths and nocturnal beats, it’s music to shed clothes to, it’s music of the twinkling sophisticated city, ready to lure you into bed.  

Having worked with the likes of Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, SOHN, Jamie Woon and Lil Silva the production of Banks’ songs is super slick and has found huge amounts of love on the blogs in 2013. The question now is can these sensual synth ear kissers progress to the stage of an album that people will love for the long term, rather than just creating the soundtrack for some quickie bedroom action. 

Banks - Waiting Game

Banks - Warm Water (Video)