8 Women Who Are About To Pop: Alt-R&B Edition
2. BANKS
We’ve written about BANKS a few times on the site (most recently regarding her great opening set for The Weeknd at Radio City), but let this serve as her proper introduction. Since the L.A. singer scored that major cosign on The Weeknd’s tour, it’s easy to frame her as Abel Tesfaye‘s female counterpart. But that’s not the whole picture, since BANKS approaches similar sonic territory from a much more sympathetic angle. This stuff doesn’t evoke catatonic sex creepouts; it’s The Weeknd’s tin man with a beating, bleeding heart, equal parts introspective and romantic.
After enlisting Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs to produce an early track, BANKS went all in on small-scale electronica for her London EP. The material mixed textures that wouldn’t feel out of place in a Purity Ring song, with vulnerable vocals that split the difference between Ellie Goulding‘s raspiness and Lana Del Rey‘s smoky melodrama. Expect her debut album next year after she closes out 2013 on the road.
