Banks

KOKO, Camden | 31 March

Worst choice of song for a TV ad? Banks‘ Waiting Game for lingerie brand Victoria’s Secret must be a strong contender. Not because it’s a bad tune – far from it. But rarely have an adman’s visuals clashed so diabolically with a backing track’s lyrics. The commercial’s brash sexuality could not jar more with a song of such vulnerability, of such emotional rawness, its barrage of supermodels simpering in bras and panties at complete odds with Banks’s confession of a broken relationship racked by insecurity. (For a suitable comparison, consider the food porn of an M&S ad, sharp knife gliding through melt-in-the-mouth roast lamb, backed by The Smith’s Meat is Murder.)

If you really want to see how to marry Waiting Game with sensuality, watch Banks sing it live. It’s mesmerising. At her first of two nights at KOKO, she was was pale, clad in clunky stilettos and a black dress extending below her knees: the opposite of pop’s cookie-cutter sex kitten. But she was utterly hypnotic.

Every ‘One to Watch 2014’ list has included this newcomer’s name, but her performance this week confirmed she is worthy of the hype. Still to release a debut album, and with just a couple of EPs to her name, 25-year-old, LA-born Jillian Banks has already garnered an impressive following. The story goes she was given a keyboard aged 14 when her mum and dad separated as a creative outlet to deal with the split. From there, her haunting, down-tempo blend of pop has drawn inspiration from two main corners: the divas of American R&B and the rich production values of James Blake, Burial and Timbaland, plus an injection of the noir, sultry beats of Massive Attack, Portishead et al. These diverse styles were delivered with aplomb on Monday night, fleshed out immeasurably by the KOKO soundsystem.

It began with Banks emerging through a dazzling expanse of sound and white strobes, rendering the stage a ghostly monochrome canvas of silhouettes, intoning her ominous tale of break-up woe in Before I Ever Met You. Her stunning 2013 single This Is What It Feels Like followed, shaking off her initial nerves with pitch-perfect vocals, sweet and high above a roaring sub-bass that reverberated deep from nose to guts.

Her short spiels in between tunes were a tad too self-conscious and glib, but these moments were swept away by the sheer authenticity of her music, its genuine anguish, genuine pain and, in the case of Brain, genuine anger which saw Banks throw off her billowing black attire, spit her words down the mic and draw on her deep, poisoned well of experience.

But her talents were most on show when she stripped down the pageant of backing tracks, bass, dry ice and flashing lights and delivered an alternative, soulful jam of Warm Waters, and one of the few songs that chart the optimism of first love rather than its painful end. Serenaded by the singing, sunny guitar licks of Nate Mercereau’s Gibson ES335, it offered some welcome light amid the tenebrous wall of synths. She repeated this with Fall Over, featuring just her voice and keyboard, and again with her brilliant cover of Aaliyah’s Are You That Somebody, accompanied by some fine percussive work from drummer Derek Taylor. But, inevitably, the darkness descended again with a powerful rendition of Waiting Game, perhaps Banks’s most harrowing song, rounded off with some soaring electric guitar at the end. One encore closed the hour-long set with a stunning cover of The Weeknd’s stirring lament, What You Need.

Banks returns to the UK in July for East London’s Lovebox festival, where there’s a chance her poignant, intimate style of performance might not work quite as well as within the claustrophobic environment of a club. But she has to be seen. As voyeuristic as it feels to listen in on her unguarded lyrics of angst, abuse and obsession, her live shows are a cathartic spectacle. Sexy, striking and seductive too. Just don’t go there expecting an extended Victoria’s Secret ad.

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Words: Jack Losh

hernameisbanks.com