Introducing… BANKS

BANKS - Before I Ever Met You

Calling yourself BANKS isn’t really the best idea for a new artist in 2013. Yeah, it looks pretty cool when written in all caps as it’s officially stylized, but the name instantly conjures up a certain inescapable it girl rapper who seems to overshadow everything in her path. Not to mention that once it’s punched into Google, the only “Banks” that appear are those of the financial kind.

Poorly chosen moniker aside, there’s nothing else to fault BANKS for. The Los Angeles-based songstress, signed to indie IAMSOUND (home of Salem, Charli XCX, and a pre-major Florence + the Machine), is rapidly gaining buzz with her brilliant debut single, “Before I Ever Met You.” Radio 1 compared it to “early Portishead,” while BANKS’ label bio mentions Fiona Apple. What it really is is a combination of the two; the soulful angst of Tidal-era Apple lost in a moody maze of downtempo noir-pop.

BANKS also has another track available, a collaboration between herself and UK producer Lil Silva, called “Work.” It’s the kind of grimey, dubby British club fodder that Katy B would sell her first born for.

If you like what you hear, you can give BANKS a bell and tell her yourself. Seriously, her phone number is on her Facebook page.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 13th, 2013 at 10:27 pm and is filed under New Artist, New Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • http://twitter.com/SuzySooyoung Suzy Sooyoung

    BRILLIANT! Loving this girl. The “Before I Ever Met You” song is pure Fiona Apple and Im loving it!!!!!
    I want more from her like NOW
    The “Work” song is cool too. Very hawt to dance to.

  • UncleFan

    Not hating on her… but could someone explain the deal with Fiona Apple’s name everywhere in the last year or so? I’m going to date myself badly with this statement, but what the hell: the last time I heard about Fiona Apple it was the 90′s and Lilith Fair and Lollapalooza and shit. Honestly, I always thought of her as a one-hit wonder, and I can’t even remember what the hit was! At least Alanis Morrisomething and Sarah McWhatsherface had songs I could remember hearing on the radio!

    Please educate me. Is Fiona Apple really “a thing” now, or is this like a goofy Monkees revival or something?

  • theprophetblog

    Fiona released a new album last year and it was brilliant. She’s always been a “thing” coz she releases albums only every several years, but they’re all like 10/10 flawless critics faves. She’s like the indie utada in that sense.

  • UncleFan

    OK, that makes sense. I went through a decade or so of playing Quake or Counter-Strike 24/7 after Fiona’s first crack at fame, so I wouldn’t have been aware of anything burbling too deeply under the mainstream until recently. I’ll see if I can get caught up on Fiona :)

  • TLo

    Hey Proph, I know it’s out of topic, but I wanna ask you something.
    Whenever I click on “Older Entries” at the very bottom of your page to
    see things I might haven’t read, it always shows Cheryl Cole/Keri Hilson
    that you posted in December. Im pretty sure there are a lot of things
    you’ve posted after those news. Whats wrong with it?
    By the way I
    thought you gave up and stopped posting some new/random artists a long
    time ago. Thank you for posting them again. It really makes your blog
    more interesting.

  • ARTPOP

    ANOTHER QUEEN MOMMY GAGA WANNABE

  • http://twitter.com/MusickMakes MusickMakes

    I thought you were gonna talk about Azealia Banks

  • http://www.twitter.com/themusicprophet iHateThisBlog

    Proph… So I changed my name as a joke, obviously to get people off my back, and I was honestly just gonna say fuck it and stop coming back, but then you go and post this. Can I just be honest with you? I’m really not a Beyonce fan, so I’ve enjoyed reading your sassy posts about her and others like her, and I get it, it brings the blog hits. Plus, it’s fun playing Devil’s advocate and pissing off the haters on here, but seriously, it was never your more ridiculous posts like those that drew me to this blog in the first place. It was posts like this one here. You write great reviews man, and I’ve actually found a few new artists here that I may never have heard otherwise. Hell, you’ve even got me to listen to K-pop a couple times, and you know how I feel about it! It’s that eclectic style that brought me here in the first place, and it’s the holding out for more posts like these that has me still barely coming back. I’m really glad to hear you’re gonna re-launch the Blog, and I sincerely hope you keep the legit posts like these coming!

    -The Music Prophet

  • mergong

    Reminds me of Beatrice Eli. Nice

  • Blah

    I lost my life to quake and counter-strike too man but then I found the light.

  • theprophetblog

    Well relaunching it is the point so I can post more artists that I like like these ones. Before I got sick of people complaining if I did more indie artists so I just posted the K-pop that I wanted and then posted the generic American pop artists that other people demanded and trashed them coz I didn’t give a shit, but for 2013 I will be focusing more on my own style and tastes.

    And girl, “barely coming back.” We all know you here every day and that this shit is your damn homepage so don’t front!