Banoffee

A singer, songwriter, and producer based in Los Angeles, Banoffee makes off-center dance-pop with a vulnerable disposition. Her debut album, 2020′s Look at Us Now Dad!, celebrated surviving various forms of adversity. She took the offensive on the next year’s Tear Tracks, then previewed her third album with 2022′s “Angel Girl.”
A native of Melbourne, Australia, Martha Betty Glenn Brown grew up in a musical household and started playing viola and composing music around the age of eight. She switched to guitar and played in local bars as a teenager. After attending Sophia Mundi Steiner School in Abbotsford Convent, she backed her older sister, singer/songwriter Hazel Brown, as a member of her touring band before the two joined forces with fellow touring bandmember Kishore Ryan to form the avant-pop group Otouto. Led by Hazel, with Martha on keyboards and vocals and Ryan on drums, Otouto issued the album PIP on Hazel’s label Two Bright Lakes in 2010.
Adopting the moniker Banoffee and a wonky, stylized synthesizer pop, Brown began releasing solo material as early as 2012. The self-produced EP Banoffee arrived in 2014. Following some personal ordeals including what she described as a mental breakdown, she relocated to Los Angeles for a fresh start. During a period that included touring with Taylor Swift as a member of Charli XCX’s band and opening for King Princess on her own, she wrote and recorded what would become Banoffee’s full-length debut.
The survival-themed Look at Us Now Dad! saw release in February 2020 on the Cascine label. Co-produced by Banoffee and Yves Rothman (Nasty Cherry, Overcoats), it featured collaborators including rapper Cupcakke, SOPHIE, and Empress Of. Provocative singles such as “Idiot” and “Never Get to Fuck Any1″ were included on the follow-up, November 2021′s Tear Tracks. She returned with material from her next album in the form of “Angel Girl” in mid-2022. ~ Marcy Donelson