Under the guidance of celebrity choirmaster Gareth Malone and his hit TV shows, choirs – from NHS to Military Wives – have made a significant dent in the charts this decade. Deep Throat Choir, an all-female, East London-based outfit founded by Luisa Gerstein of experimental group Landshapes, might share the same feelgood factor as those ensembles, but aren’t cut from quite the same tear-jerking cloth. Their saucy moniker promises something more subversive, and belying the sweet, swelling harmonies delivered in this collection of covers and original compositions is an erotic thread that runs from a cover of Amy Winehouse’s typically frank In My Bed to the drunk-in-love sensuality of self-penned opener Ada. Elsewhere, they bring melodic immediacy and calming mellifluousness to various astute left-of-centre choices, including Björk’s Stonemilker, Little Dragon’s Ritual Union and Donnie and Joe Emerson’s lost 1979 track Baby, which was rediscovered and became an underground hit in the late 00s, to delightful effect.
