Album: Deep Throat Choir - In Order To Know You

Although it’s indirect, the overall feel of In Order To Know You points to where jazz and soul meet –  a space analogous to that occupied by The Rotary Connection, Seventies Curtis Mayfield, Neneh Cherry, the early Camille and the warmer end of trip-hop.

It’s an impression fostered by shuffling drums, interlacing brass and undulating strings. Nonetheless Deep Throat Choir's second album is explicitly – as their handle acknowledges – about the voice, the merging of voices. Eleven voices. Sometimes in unison behind a soloist, at other times weaving in and out of each other.

On the title track, the lead voice edges towards a Lauren Hill sinuousness while the chorale intimates En Vogue. Next, “Unstitching” opens with a folky lead line but beds in with a swaying, late-night smokiness – a solo sax adds to the atmosphere. Earlier, the short “Tremolo Train”, with its wordless vocal, is more impressionistic. It’s preceded by the direct “Lighter,” which insinuates in with a vaguely township feel and twinkling piano.

The self-assured In Order To Know You takes Deep Throat Choir further than their 2017 debut album Be OK, which featured vocals-plus-percussion-only covers of songs by Björk, Little Dragon, Amy Winehouse alongside the less prominent but as notable Electralane, Sylvan Esso, US DJ/producer MK and Wildbirds & Peacedrums. Now, what appears to have happened is a distillation resulting in the creation of all-original material and the decision to bring on board a range of instruments. With this, the identity of Deep Throat Choir is made clear. The space they occupy may be their own, but that’s integral to making In Order To Know You what it is. And what’s here isn’t hard to get to grips with – to bowdlerise the lyrics of “Unstitching,” it gets under the skin.

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