ChopChop have a unique sound, but inevitably some references are bandied about when describing them, such as Ze Records, The Beta Band, Stump, The Cramps, and Talking Heads.
Written in collaboration with visual artist Jim Saunders, the 10 songs of Bell Well span a period of 5 years that include changes in band members, the global pandemic and experimentation with new song structures. Some of the tunes – The Weatherman, Shake it, Lost My Space and the 2023 released single Elástico – belong to the high octane rapid dancing rhythm that characterised the first album Everything Looks So Real with the guitar player, Danny Hammond.
A shift to more elaborate structures and guitar textures and effects can be heard under the command of Adrian Southby on guitar (the songs Rats, King Canute, Hide and Seek and The Cannery were co-written with Adrian). We Are God’s Potatoes and Feathers and Fins were conceived using ‘pass-the-parcel’ style due to the lockdown restrictions.
“A fantastic life-affirming noise… wildly original” – Tom Robinson, BBC 6
“CHOPCHOP’s music snakes round its orator like a slippery thing, cymbals replaced by the clatter of hubcaps on toms, cutlery-jammed guitars – there’s an itchy jazzy vibe to the melodics, fuelled by a fertile imagination full of bruised shapes and punkish angles.“
Michael Rodham-Heaps in FREQ magazine
