A Monday evening choir practice in London. The ladies smooth their skirts and look expectantly at their choir mistress. She waves a hand and the singing begins. “I’m a drunk! I’m a drunk! One rum, one vodka, one coke, one smoke . . .” The women, brightly coloured bacchanals in multicoloured capes, stamp their feet as they half-sing, half-shout. “Drink gin, get thin, I’m a drunk, I’m a drunk, I’m a drunk . . .”
It’s not exactly what one would traditionally expect from a ladies’ choir. But then, little about ladies’ choirs is what one would expect any more.
Once the preserve of middle-aged women with fawn footwear and frowsy hair, choirs are suddenly “in”. Across London, bright young things are as likely to be found Facebooking each other about singing practice as parties, while choirs such as Gaggle, the Funk Chorus and Harmony on Heels gain followers.
The edgiest of all is Gaggle, a choir that has been variously described as “pop-riot”, “sci-fi riot” and (perhaps most accurately) “beyond description”. Gaggle meets to practise every Monday at the George Tavern in Stepney, East London. In the pub’s artfully artless surroundings (candles, eclectic furniture), its young female members are a formidably fashionable lot.
Speaking to the choir’s members, one senses that no one is more surprised than they are to find themselves at choir practice. Caroline Green, 29, says: “I’ve always liked singing but I would never normally have considered joining a choir. You imagine that they’ll all be 50-year-old ladies in below-the-knee tweed skirts.”
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This is a stereotype with which Gareth Malone, of the BBC Two series The Choir, is very familiar. “When I first got involved in choirs they felt terribly fusty,” he says. “Most felt as though they had been run in the same way since 1961 — which they probably had. Singing just wasn’t something that young people did; I was always the youngest person by about ten years.”
Gaggle’s members, in contrast, range in age from 21 to 39, with most in their mid to late twenties. Most are young professionals. As Deborah Coughlin, Gaggle’s leader, says: “They are an educated lot here — we have teachers, doctors and doctors of literature.” Then she adds, as if embarrassed to be portraying the group as bourgeois: “Not that that matters, of course.”
Rachel Holt is a 25-year-old theatre administrator who sings in another young female choir, Harmony on Heels. She agrees that in recent years there has been a change in the choral demographic. “Choirs have had a lot of publicity recently, with TV programmes such as Last Choir Standing and The Choir,” she says. “Singing in one has become more mainstream.”
These new choirs also differ from the older model in their ambitions, and many stage frequent concerts. Gaggle is particularly impressive in this regard and Coughlin, who has the bone structure and brisk manner of a Nancy Mitford heroine, evidently has ambitions far beyond evening singalongs. Green says: “Deborah always said she wanted to do a tour and an album. I don’t think anyone believed her.”
But this is almost exactly what has happened. Gaggle may have begun as a few friends singing together but now they have not only performed at a festival (the Transmusicales) in France, but have started to attract the attention of the NME, Radio 1 and the music industry. Their first single, I Hear Flies, is released next month.
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The music that these choirs sing is also distinctive. Says Malone: “In the past, when you went to a choir you would find yourself singing from ancient library copies, their pages yellowed and curled up at the corners. It wasn’t just that the music was old; it felt old; it even smelt old.”
Robin Osterley is the chief executive of Making Music, the largest association of amateur music groups in the UK. With 1,600 choirs on his books, he is in a position to judge trends. “There has been a massive resurgence of interest in singing, especially among the young,” he says. “We are seeing more and more choirs starting up and, unlike before, they tend to be started by young people — often young women.”
No one could call Gaggle’s music fusty. The lyrics of the songs they sing are composed by Coughlin. Traditional choir music tends to be religiously inspired but Gaggle’s lyrics, ranging in subject from political apathy to alcohol abuse via William Blake, are more earthy than ethereal.
Flies is particularly striking and contains the lyrics: “Mum’s drunk, Dad’s drunk, friend’s drunk, foe’s drunk, I’m a drunk.” It deals with what Coughlin (glass of red wine in hand) describes as “the relentlessness of drinking”. She explains: “Everywhere I go there seems to be alcohol about. So Flies is about the fear of what we might be doing to ourselves with all that drink.”
It is not only Gaggle’s sound that is unusual. The appearance of its members, who perform in multicoloured, capacious capes that cover them from nose to knee, is equally esoteric. The capes were instituted because Coughlin was keen that the focus should be on their voices rather than their figures or faces. “This is about music,” she says. “It is absolutely not about being sexy.”
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Some people find this lack of titillation in an all-girl group puzzling. “The first question that everyone asks is ‘Are you all lesbians?’ says Coughlin. But despite the Sapphic slurs (or perhaps because of them) there has been no shortage of people wanting to join, and since its foundation this year, the number of members has risen from six to more than 20.
The choir’s members are clear about the attraction. “I love singing. Singing makes me happy,” says Kamari (because the lyrics are so scurrilous and their jobs so responsible, many choir members ask to be identified only by their “Gaggle” names — surnames or nicknames — only).
Rachel Holt of Harmony would agree about the physical pleasure of choral singing. “It is a very happy activity,” she says. “If you’ve had a bad day at the office, then you go to sing in a choir, you’ll come out smiling.”
There is also a strong general appeal in being involved in an artistic endeavour. “It’s great to be creative again,” says Kamari. “I used to be so creative when I was younger — always drawing and writing poetry. But somehow, when you get older and start work you tend to forget about all that. Singing is a way of reclaiming it.”
That they are an all-female group is also a draw. “I haven’t been around large groups of women since school,” says Kamari. “This reminds me how much I like it.” Green agrees: “I went to an all-girls school,” she says, “so this is an atmosphere that I’m used to and rather enjoy.”
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The differences between members can be another attraction. “I work in local government and without this I’d meet only people associated with that,” says Kamari. “Here I’ve met illustrators, artists, fashion designers — all sorts of people I’d never normally come across.”
“Singing in a choir isn’t just about the music,” says Malone. “It’s about the whole experience of involving yourself in a shared endeavour with like-minded people of a similar age.
“Of course it’s a bit more effort to go to a choir practice than to go to the pub — but with choir there is a payoff. Go to the pub for ten weeks and you’ll have nothing to show for it. Go to choir for ten weeks and at the end you’ll have performed in a concert. You’ll have achieved something. Choirs are all about deferred gratification.”
Or, in the case of Gaggle, not so deferred. As the group comes to the end of Flies, Coughlin picks up the glass of red wine that has been sitting at her feet throughout. “Right everyone,” she calls. “That’s enough of that. Let’s have a drink.”
Gaggle’s single I Hear Flies is released digitally on February 18 on Transgressive Records (and non-digitally on March 1)