CHOP

When Channel Operators launched the CHOP project in 2023, it was via a blisteringly good album which offered authentic nods to turn-of-the-80s Italian disco, jazz-funk, and Mediterranean boogie. Hopes are high, then, for this much-anticipated sequel single. On ‘My Best Friend’, the Italian duo takes us back to the mid 1980s and the colour and eccentricity of European takes on US electrofunk and soul – all colourful chords, parping synth horns, FM synth melodies, nods to D-Train, memorable synth-bass and glassy-eyed lead vocals. Fittingly, flip-side cut ‘Side By Side’ is effectively an effects-laden, Paul Simpson style ‘dub mix’ of the title track rich in echoing synth solos, delay-seeped vocal snippets and infectious, synth bass-driven grooves. Simply superb stuff all told.