Deep Throat Choir
Deep Throat Choir is a London based singing collective that formed in 2013, driven by a desire to strip music making to the basic elements of voices and percussion, and to gather for the joy and communal experience of raising voices together. They released their debut album “Be Ok” on Bella Union in 2017, and followed in 2018 with “Murmurations”, a collaborative album with Simian Mobile Disco, where voice and synthesiser were one and the same. They continue to explore the capacities of the human voice, and are working on a new body of work, this time with more extensive instrumentation, and the product of a collaborative effort.
Players:
Drums: Zara Toppin
Bass: Heloise Tunstall-Behrens
Piano + conducting: Luisa Gerstein
Synths + conducting: Tanya Auclair
Sax: Sarah Parkes
Violin/Viola: Sarah Anderson
Cello: Kate Burn
On Keeping Our Name
CW: contains discussion of sexualised violence and intimate partner violence
We wanted to share an evolving conversation that we’ve been having over the course of this turbulent year.
Not for the first time, we were called upon to explain our name ahead of the release of our version of “You Can’t Kill The Spirit” - a song which became the leading anthem of The Greenham Common Peace Camp (1981 - 2000). Sharing our song with that community, valid concerns were raised over our name and its connection to the sexualised violence suffered by Linda Lovelace during the making of the film Deep Throat and throughout her marriage to the film’s production manager.
Reflecting on this connection, we came very close to doing away with it altogether, and it’s important we take this opportunity to say unequivocally that we in no way condone the abuse of Linda Lovelace. We stand in solidarity with survivors of sexualised violence, and we’re not here to diminish or make light of the sexualised intimate partner violence that she suffered.
Holding the truth of this carefully, we have turned to one another to explore what the name means for us now, seven years on from our beginnings. Then, our adoption of the name represented a spirit of subversion, humour and a desire to dramatically disrupt the connotations of a choir. Over time, for a lot of us, it has become completely disassociated from anything other than the choir itself and with it sisterhood, joy and the empowerment and collective spirit of communing in music together. But we know, of course, that words have wider implications.
Whilst we acknowledge the seriousness of Linda Lovelace’s experience, we also recognise that contexts have evolved since the making of Deep Throat. For us, the term and the act itself don’t automatically imply a lack of consent. Exchanging it for something more sanitised has come to feel implicitly sex-negative, slut-shaming and, on another level, a rejection of porn and sex work.
At times, keeping the name has felt playful, subversive and empowering; at others, confusing and unnecessarily provocative. In our conversations with each other, we’ve tried to inhabit the uncertainty of this liminal space in ways that can feel generative; to explore the different meanings that our name can hold around consent, power, desire and sexual freedom. We have found strength and connection in the process of allowing for this multiplicity. Whilst holding space for this continually evolving conversation, it has felt right to remain as Deep Throat Choir.
We will be releasing “Like a Mountain” on 2nd of April and donating the proceeds to an organisation working specifically with survivors of domestic violence.
