In Order To Know You Deep Throat Choir SKU: BELLA1229V Barcode: 5400863050993 19.00 £19.00 Genre: Rock And Pop Label: Bella Union Released Date: 7th January 2022 Buying Format: 1LP Out of stock Back Order Add to your Wishlist Description Product Info “I’m reeling, I’m restless,” sing Deep Throat Choir from the heart of their second album. That restlessness manifests in a set of tremendously abundant, original songs from the east London female and non-binary vocal collective, founded by Landshapes member Luisa Gerstein. Released via Bella Union in December, In Order to Know You is a multi-layered assertion of freshly expansive range, driven by two core virtues: a sense of strength in unity and an open embrace of its singers’ personal experiences, shared through collective, supportive vocal expression. After 2017’s largely covers-based debut album, Be OK, the choir recognised the call to evolve. “Having been singing together for five-plus years, and having released an album of mostly covers, it felt like the logical next step to make our own music together,” says Gerstein. “This album is the alchemy of all the specific voices and players that make up the choir, and a collaborative process of writing and sharing music and ideas. Sonically, I wanted to move beyond just voices and percussion, to see what richness could be brought with acoustic instruments and electronics, and to transition from a choir that does covers to a band with loads of vocalists.” The rewards of that leap are immediately evident on ‘Alchemilla’, named after the herbaceous perennial. A testimony to the strength in vulnerability, it celebrates an openness to emotion across buoyant harmonies that “ebb and flow” like cool waves; with words by Heloise Tunstall-Behrens, Alice Freedman and Holly Turnbull, the song emerged from a jamming session in Margate and a conversation about masculinity. On the jazzy ‘Firefly’, Sarah Parkes’ saxophone adds flavour to a song of palpable feeling. ‘Picturing’ is a spun-silk reflection on shared tenacity before tough circumstance, while the forceful voices and folksy guitars of ‘Uvas’ frame a lyric that testifies to the choir’s depths of personal experience. “This song is about my mum,” says Gerstein. “In Colombia (or maybe it’s a Catholic thing?) you eat 12 grapes (uvas) at New Year’s to make 12 resolutions with. I was thinking about her resolve to move and travel to a faraway place, and a resolve and hunger that I feel she’s passed down to me. It’s about looking back at the generations before you, finding common threads that run through those histories, and all the bigger histories that are part of that tapestry, like ships on the sea and emeralds in the dirt (early conquistadors traded glass for emeralds with indigenous people).” A rolling piano buoys up ‘Lighter’, which channels Sun Ra’s influence into a song that upholds the support found in mutual connectivity. Meanwhile, the gorgeous swoon of ‘Patience’ again illuminates how individual singers’ experiences can take shape within the choir, to become something held by all. “I wrote ‘Patience’ as a kind of eulogy for my mum’s funeral,” says soloist Rosa Slade. “Music for me was the easier way to express a combined and confusing feeling of grief and celebration of life. I joined Deep Throat a few months later and found the choir space brought such deep holding through song and collectivity. When Luisa began to compose and gather for the second album, it felt natural somehow for the song to be held by those voices too; so it could live by transforming into something new and shared; becoming multiple stories existing in unison.” Elsewhere, the restless, reeling surfaces of ‘Camille’ foreground the shape-shifting potential in Deep Throat Choir: between its effusive voices and bubbling arrangements, the song blurs the lines between boundaries and singers, leaping off from Björk’s influence to mount a declaration of band intent. “It felt like a real line in the sand for encapsulating a new sound for us,” says Gerstein, who co-wrote the words to the song with Tanya Auclair while listening to lectures by science and feminism professor Donna Haraway. From there, In Order to Know You heads towards its climax without seeming to touch the ground, from the title-track’s devotional exhalation to the stealthy, smoky shimmer of ‘Unstitching’. Its lyrics drawn from a poem by Emma Cleave, the sublime ‘Field of Not Knowing’ closes the album in a vivid tapestry of folk-gothic images (moon beams and pipistrelles) and serene-to-soaring arrangements, revelling in possibility: “It’s the place where I begin,” sing the choir. For Deep Throat Choir, the result is both an exquisite culmination of journeys taken so far and a lustrous, exquisite springboard for further adventures. Their travels began in 2013, when the collective took shape from a desire to strip music back to the basic elements of raw female voices and drums, united in a fashion that both honours and transmogrifies personal expression. A small group of four or five singers steadily expanded, with Zara Toppin’s drums providing a propulsive energy. Cathartic live shows and collaborations followed, ranging from team-ups with Peggy Sue, Stealing Sheep, Horse Meat Disco and Matthew E White to performances at Green Man, Wilderness, the Southbank Centre’s WOW festival, London’s Scala and beyond. Be OK provided a gutsy showcase for the band’s close, collective strengths, bolstered by weekly gatherings at a church in east London to blow the roof off. A fruitful collaboration with techno-pop duo Simian Mobile Disco on the 2018 album Murmurations followed: a testament to the choir’s alchemical abilities. At a residency at the Prah Foundation, Margate, seeds were sown for the new songs. An increased confidence bloomed as the band pushed at its boundaries, an evolution aided by engineer Andy Ramsey, the vast range of contributors’ musical talents and the innate strength of their shared foundations. Removing the first album’s boundaries of voices and drums, the choir freed themselves up to explore musically, with the emphasis on voices remaining a central constant. Emerging organically, the songs reflect the experiences and worlds of the singers who contributed to the writing process. Alongside soloists Tanya Auclair, Liv Stones, Holly Holden, Elly Condron, Miryam Solomon, Fikir Assefa, Maddie Rix, Rosa Slade, Heloise Tunstall-Behrens, Fran Lobo and Gerstein, new contributors included brass players Marcus Hamblett and Emma Gatrill, plus pianist Sam Beste. From within the choir, Kate Burn played cello, Sarah Anderson played violin/viola, Tunstall-Behrens played bass and Auclair contributed synth parts. Recording took place before lockdown; Gerstein produced, while Jimmy Robertson (Anna Calvi, Peggy Sue) mixed the record. From these deep roots, fresh growths blossomed. The album is instrumental in the formation of the multi-disciplinary Amorphous Sounds collective, named after the lyrics to ‘Camille’ and launched by Gerstein with long-time friend and collaborator Anika Mottershaw. As Gerstein puts it, “Amorphous Sounds is a continuation of the collaborative processes that started on this album. It’s inspiring to have so many artists within the group, and the idea of the label is to have a space where people can collaborate on songs or more extended projects, both within and outside the choir. It’s giving a name to something that already exists, and a structure for it to grow. As things start to open up we’re plotting some Amorphous shows, and I hope we’ll be able to jam and make tunes together again soon!” The album title reflects that drive towards a kind of questing togetherness. “We made this music in order to know and understand each other more fully,” says Gerstein, “and that’s what music is in general. We’re saying it to each other, and to the listener.” Getting to know this most deep, rich and mutable of records is, we’d wager, a journey well worth the taking. Artist Deep Throat Choir Genre Rock And Pop Label Bella Union Buying Options 1LP Format 1LP Condition New Country UK Track Listings 1 Alchemilla 2 Firefly 3 Picturing 4 Uvas 5 Lighter 6 Tremelo Train 7 Patience 8 Camille 9 In Order to Know You 10 Unstitching 11 Field of Not Knowing Share this On Facebook On Twitter Via Email More from Rock And Pop View Product Quick View World of Twist Quality Street Rock And Pop | 3 loop Music | 1LP Released 27th January 2014 £21.00 Back Order View Pre/Back Orders World of Twist Quality Street £21.00 Genre: Rock And Pop Label: 3 loop Music SKU: 3RANGE6LP Formats: 1LP Released Date: 27th January 2014 Read More Back Order View Pre/Back Orders View Product Quick View Modern Studies Swell To Great Rock And Pop | Fire Records | 1LP, Coloured Vinyl, Includes Download Code Released 27th October 2017 £19.00 Back Order View Pre/Back Orders Modern Studies Swell To Great £19.00 Genre: Rock And Pop Label: Fire Records SKU: FIRELP502X Formats: 1LP, Coloured Vinyl, Includes Download Code Released Date: 27th October 2017 Read More Back Order View Pre/Back Orders View Product Quick View Gun Club, The Fire Of Love Rock And Pop | Munster | 1LP Released 2nd February 2017 £19.00 Back Order View Pre/Back Orders Gun Club, The Fire Of Love £19.00 Genre: Rock And Pop Label: Munster SKU: MR256 Formats: 1LP Released Date: 2nd February 2017 Read More Back Order View Pre/Back Orders View Product Quick View Kristin Hersh Hips & Makers (30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) Rock And Pop | 4AD | 2LP Released 20th April 2024 £35.00 Add to basket Reserve View Reservations Kristin Hersh Hips & Makers (30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) £35.00 Genre: Rock And Pop Label: 4AD SKU: 4AD0652LPX Formats: 2LP Released Date: 20th April 2024 Reserve View Reservations Read More Add to basket View Product Quick View Queen Greatest Hits Vol 2 Metal / Classic Rock | Virgin Records | 180g, 2LP Released 18th November 2016 £26.00 Back Order View Pre/Back Orders Queen Greatest Hits Vol 2 £26.00 Genre: Metal / Classic Rock Label: Virgin Records SKU: 5704844 Formats: 180g, 2LP Released Date: 18th November 2016 Read More Back Order View Pre/Back Orders View Product Quick View Neil Young After The Gold Rush (50th Anniversary) Rock And Pop | Warner Records | 180g, 1LP, Box Set Released 19th March 2021 £93.00 Back Order View Pre/Back Orders Neil Young After The Gold Rush (50th Anniversary) £93.00 Genre: Rock And Pop Label: Warner Records SKU: 0093624889595 Formats: 180g, 1LP, Box Set Released Date: 19th March 2021 Read More Back Order View Pre/Back Orders View Product Quick View James Gold Mother – National Album Day 2023 Rock And Pop | Universal | 2LP Released 14th October 2023 £39.00 Add to basket Reserve View Reservations James Gold Mother – National Album Day 2023 £39.00 Genre: Rock And Pop Label: Universal SKU: 3558874 Formats: 2LP Released Date: 14th October 2023 Reserve View Reservations Read More Add to basket View Product Quick View ITASCA Open To Chance Rock And Pop | Paradise Of Bachelors | 1LP, Includes Download Code Released 30th September 2016 £21.00 Back Order View Pre/Back Orders ITASCA Open To Chance £21.00 Genre: Rock And Pop Label: Paradise Of Bachelors SKU: POB030LP Formats: 1LP, Includes Download Code Released Date: 30th September 2016 Read More Back Order View Pre/Back Orders View Product Quick View Alfie Boe & Michael Ball Together in Vegas Rock And Pop | Decca | 1LP Released 25th November 2022 £20.00 Back Order View Pre/Back Orders Alfie Boe & Michael Ball Together in Vegas £20.00 Genre: Rock And Pop Label: Decca SKU: 4577137 Formats: 1LP Released Date: 25th November 2022 Read More Back Order View Pre/Back Orders View Product Quick View Angel Olsen Aisles Rock And Pop | Jagjaguwar | 12", EP/Mini Album Released 24th September 2021 £14.00 Back Order View Pre/Back Orders Angel Olsen Aisles £14.00 Genre: Rock And Pop Label: Jagjaguwar SKU: JAG412LP Formats: 12", EP/Mini Album Released Date: 24th September 2021 Read More Back Order View Pre/Back Orders See more in Rock And Pop Start again
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