New Music: Banks - Fuck With Myself (Video)

OK. Ok. I know I shouldn’t be ‘shocked’ when someone uses the F-word in a pop song, after all it's just a word and this isn't 1977 and the Sex Pistols all over again, but still, I am. So well done Banks for surprising me. After her first album managed to straddle the line between blog-pop and mainstream approval, the first offering from the second doesn’t show any ambitions of occupying the easy and obvious middle of the road. If anything Fuck With Myself and its accompanying video are darker, creepier and more leftfield – think FKA Twigs meets American Horror Story opening credits. Let’s hope she can keep this up with whatever comes next – she might lose a few fans with this one, but I’d rather that then her veering into land of the bland.

Banks - Fuck With Myself

A tale concerning hair dye, Shazam and Banks.

One of the attributes a new music blogger is supposedly required to have is good taste, which is frankly a ridiculous notion because taste is a very personal thing. Imagine if there was just one set of music that was defined as good - the world would be a very boring and homogenous place wouldn’t it? For want of a better analogy it would be like all the heterosexual men only liking 5’ 4” brunettes. Imagine the consequences. There would be a lot of polygamous relationships for a start with not enough 'good' women to go round and a lot of unloved blondes. Hair dye sales would also probably increase, leading to further homogenisation, until everyone had forgotten what good taste was in the first place. 

Of course the second attribute that you have to possess as a blogger alongside taste is an ego, because to a certain extent you have to think your taste is good – otherwise why bother writing about the music you love, especially if (as in the case of most blogs) you’re not paid for it? The aim of the blogger is to inflict their taste on the world, because they believe it’s good and they want others to know – effectively they want the world to embrace their love of redheads / blondes / brunettes etc (delete as appropriate), that is if music was a hair colour.

The third attribute and sadly one that often seems to be lacking in some music blogs is knowledge. We’re firm believers that having a good knowledge of music and its history helps in forming opinions and emotional connections. To use the relationship analogy again, when you have your first boyfriend or girlfriend love stabs chemicals into your brain and everything is a bit giddy, but (for most people) that first love doesn’t last forever and as you have more relationships and get that bit older you get better at spotting the sort of person who suits you. You don’t get it right all the time of course, but knowledge and experience help. It’s why when we look back at the artists that we’ve written about over the years on Breaking More Waves, for the most part we still enjoy the music that we posted then and have a long term relationship with a lot of it. Of course there’s still the odd one night stand moment, but they lessen. Most of us however probably purchased some sort of deeply embarrassing first single. Tastes often change with acquired knowledge.

It’s that level of knowledge that has from time to time turned us into a form of human Shazam. No need to hold your smart phone up in the air when you’re out and hear a great song on a tannoy system – just ask us, we’re pretty good at naming that tune.

Yet today we have a confession. A few days ago on the radio we heard a fantastic song. It had immaculate production, lyrics that give two fingers up to a man who thinks he’s so smart but isn’t “I can see you struggling, boy, don’t hurt your brain, thinking what you’re gonna say,” and an epic chorus designed to upend rafters. “What is this song?” we questioned. There was only one way to find out. The real Shazam was activated. The answer: Brain by Banks. A track we’d already featured on the blog. Face palming ensued.

Sometimes, even those with vast knowledge have gaps and lapses. This was one of them.

So today we’re reinforcing that knowledge to ourselves with the new video for Brain, released yesterday. Shot mainly in black and white with just the odd flash of colour this Barnaby Roper directed film (Kanye West, Dior) gives the song an added layer of mysticism and vulnerability. It is our favourite Banks track to date (that’s our taste bit) and if you don’t agree you’re wrong (there’s the ego).

Banks - Brain (Video)

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Banks - Brain

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Oh hold on. Let’s not worry about that stuff. Let’s listen to the song. It’s actually pretty good. Sure the chorus sounds like the sort of thing Katy Perry or Rihanna might bash out, but it’s good isn’t it? Very good. The Blog Sound of 2014 poll topper shows what she’s about. Ignore the hype, forget the buzz, yes it’s very zeitgeisty but it’s pretty stratospheric.

Banks - Brain

Joint Winners of the UK Blog Sound of 2014 Revealed - Banks & Marika Hackman

The votes are all in and today we can reveal that Banks (pictured left) and Marika Hackman (pictured right) are the joint winners of the third UK Blog Sound of 2014 poll, a poll voted for by 59 UK based music bloggers.

Marika Hackman is a British solo musician who writes haunting and captivating songs that feature her ethereal vocals and instrumentation that has been pigeonholed as folk but often offers much more. She was the 8th most blogged artist by UK based Hype Machine listed bloggers in 2013.

Marika Hackman - Cinnamon (Acoustic)




Banks is an American musician who makes sultry modern sounding electronic R & B influenced pop. She was the 9th most blogged artist by UK based Hype Machine listed bloggers in 2013 and also features on the BBC Sound of 2014 poll, a list that the Blog Sound of 2014 was designed to compliment.

Banks - Waiting Game 




It’s the first time in the polls three year history that the most voted for artists have had an equal number of votes.

The voting for the UK Blog Sound of 2014 was closer than ever with singer songwriter Sivu finishing as runner up, just one single vote behind the two winners.

This year 139 different acts received at least 1 vote from the participating blogs, the vast majority of the 139 receiving just 1 solitary vote. Of the 15 acts on the BBC Sound of list 7 of them failed to secure a single vote from UK Blog Sound voters for the UK Blog Sound poll.

What Can We Can Conclude From This Years Voting?

In terms of popularity, on one hand some UK bloggers have a commonality of taste with the BBC Sound Of voters, with Banks coming joint first on the Blog Sound poll and featuring on the BBC’s long list. 8 of the acts on the BBC Sound of long list also received votes on the Blog Sound poll, although only 3 of them (Banks, George Ezra and Royal Blood) got enough to feature on the Blog Sound poll long list. It will be interesting to see if the popularity of Banks with UK bloggers is repeated by the BBC voters and if she features in the top 5 of the BBC list. On the other hand Marika Hackman and Sivu are nowhere to be found on the BBC long list, but are evidently both popular with certain sectors of UK bloggers.

With Banks being one of the winners it also continues a tradition of UK bloggers voting high for American artists, with Friends topping the poll 2 years ago and Haim winning it in 2013.

And so to 2014....

We look forward to seeing what all of the Blog Sound 2014 nominated artists deliver this year (you can see the full long list here) except for Mt Wolf who sadly in a strange turn of events announced they were splitting up the day after being named as one of the Blog Sound nominees! The curse of the Blog Sound list? We hope not, but credit to Mt Wolf for mentioning the Blog Sound poll in their split statement (and a thumbs down to the NME who removed the line about the Blog Sound poll in the feature they ran on the Mt Wolf split when quoting their statement - we'd love to know why).

Here’s more music from Marika Hackman (performing a song she recorded with runner up Sivu) and a remix of another track by Banks, the UK Blog Sound of 2014 winners.

Marika Hackman (featuring Sivu) - Skin



Banks - Change (Dream Koala Remix)



For a full list of voting blogs see here.

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)