Karneef - "Got Money". Like Mozart's Sister or Pat Jordache (where he was a member), Karneef is an act from Montreal's new bedroom school: damaged, funky, full of appetite and desire. None of Grimes' childish hexes; this is more grown-up than that, nicked and mangy, wolftongue lapping. In Error is a simmering, sidling broil, with grooves that will inch over and burn. Karneef can sound like David Byrne or he can sound like Prince, he can sound like James Murphy or Jim Carrey circa The Mask. "We Found Money" is a resolute jam, skewed and self-satisfied. The singer found money. I do believe he found money. As you may imagine, he is happy about this. He celebrates like a man dancing alone on the dancefloor, like a man dancing alone in an alley, like a junkyard dog dancing alone at the top of the heap. But with the song's slow advance - woodblocks and backing sighs, a cellphone interruption, the sudden & unexpected, frisky, acoustic guitar - you can imagine everyone joining in. You can imagine the scales falling from everyone's eyes, realizing this dirtbag ain't. He found money. He's a millionaire. [buy]

Blue Hawaii - "In Two". New music from a duo that made one of my favourite songs of 2010; a band that's described as a Braids side-project but that's better than Braids, for my money; more pop, more constrained, water poured into a container. With Blue Hawaii I am always made to think of essences, concentrates. You reduce a thing to its purest part. Acid blotter, rosewater, petroleum - it shows itself in the first taste. Splendour unhidden. Either you look her in the eyes or you do not. Other bands are also messing with cut-up synths, sudden blooms, the layering of female voice - but most use these sounds as a screen, concealing that there is nothing inside, no interior. With Blue Hawaii the music is all thrown colours, inkblots, addings. At most it is a veil - something to conceal those eyes. To matter, a song does not need to be a shapeless trance. It does not need to be a room full of smoke. It can be many shivering, separate fires. [out January 22 / via Gorilla vs Bear / five gigs at CMJ]

(painting by Paul Jelinek)