Jewelry, Miss $, Hwayoung absent

Jewelry's Look At Me EP is fun all through, surprising me since I'd had an impression of Jewelry as embodying "workmanlike" and not much more. Actually, they'd hit big in 2008 with a terrific remake of In-Grid's "One More Time," producer Shinsadong Tiger taking basic Eurodance and novelty accordion and, without much adjustment beyond extra vocal wisps and a rap, making it warmer. Despite this highlight, that's about all I knew of Jewelry, other than my side impression of mehness, as I've been concentrating on the now, the wave of SNSD and 2NE1 and their bright colors. Half of Jewelry is new since then; I still wouldn't rate the voices as special, except for that of rapper Baby-J. But the workman voices are up for the party.

Single "Look At Me" is built on a basic eight-bar blues with shuffling drums and bargain-counter horns chugging along excellently in the style of half-north half-south off-hand R&B B-sides you'd find on Cincinnati's King Records in the 1950s, K-pop singing and a bits K-pop electro-gloss sitting comfortably atop it. The instrumental version is even better, and better than either is "Rhythm HA!!!" which reminds me of 2NE1's CL in its sense of glee, but in hyper-time, Baby-J whipping her way through curves and turns, then growling and laughing in triumph.

Watch on YouTube

( Miss $ Miss Us? )

( Hwayoung missing )