Banks: One to Watch for 2014

With heartbreak and the agonies of love back on the menu, all manner of über-talented (and some less so) musicians have cracked their metaphorical eggshells and broken into a wild world. Amongst this flood of shimmering, slithering sounds is one LA chanteuse poised to claim the crown and dominate 2014. Banks.

Famously apathetic towards social media (“I don’t do social media or anything; I never have, it makes me feel a little overwhelmed and too connected to everyone’s thoughts.”) – something of a necessity for burgeoning stars these days – she’s never been coy that her Facebook and Twitter profiles are run by her management. However, unlike many other e-phobes, she has, quite bolshy-ly, slapped her genuine digits on her profile for fans to call her, text or leave voicemails: “I answer everyone, or I try to. It’s hard sometimes… I got one that was really beautiful: he said that he was like really, really in a dark place and felt lost and that there was nothing to live for, and then my music made him feel like there was something to live for, and something that made him not feel alone.”

Banks is a self-taught pianist, inspired by Lauryn Hill, Tracy Chapman and Erykah Badu, though more often she finds her muse in reality: “Just anything I’m feeling in my own mind. It’s very internal for me, it doesn’t come from anything external.” She began her sonic journey in her mid teens: “I felt lost, I didn’t know how to express myself and I felt so unheard. Somebody gave me a toy keyboard and I just started playing around with it, and it made me feel better.”

Banks – real name Jillian Banks – has piqued nigh everyone’s interest this year, from The Weeknd, who she supported on his recent tour, to Katy Perry, who famously tweeted her fondness of Banks’ track “This Is What It Feels Like” to her adoring legions. All this celebrity bluster would fall on deaf ears if there weren’t astonishingly impressive noises to back them up; fortunately, Banks’ output is basically a gift bequeathed by higher powers. She’s crack for critics, who endlessly gorge themselves on her addictive tones, and given the reception to her London EP, that’s unlikely to cease for many moons.

“Waiting Game” is a dark neo-goth ingot of pop gold. The fragile vox echo Ellie Goulding or tourmate, The Weeknd, but the brooding synth barrage is more akin to something from Arbutus Records – Doldrums’ erratic glitch-tronica isn’t far removed. It’s a slinking, nu-cabaret bonfire; a beast with a thousand hooks. “Before I Ever Met You”, a quiet storm behemoth, rattles with rickety rib-synths and the crumpled clicks of tortured garage – and by gum, when that swung fingersnap breakdown hits, you’ll lose your shit, cascading into a vortex of swooning heartache.

Banks is proving herself a formidable force in the music world. She’s not just in it for a quick buck though: “It’s my life, the air that I breathe, so I’m in heaven. I feel like the luckiest person on the planet,” she told us earlier this year. Going in to 2014 with such high-profile backing, vital music and an admirable ethos, there’s no doubt in our minds that next year will, at least partially, belong to Banks