Constant Sorrow is the new, deliberately low-profile project from someone going by B Normal, and Blue DJ is the first single to surface from it. Dilettante Sound say they coaxed B Normal into the light "using patience, kindness and persistent soft encouragement" after years of operating under the radar.
Blue DJ is taken from the debut release Ex Libris – Killing John Norris, out 6 November on limited-edition cassette and digitally. It was recorded over the last few years in disused spaces and vacant warehouses in east London, and the press release describes it as "downer soliloquies and dreampop elegies interspersed with ambient musings" – sparse and crackly in places, but, they say, quietly captivating.
The seven track record also includes songs titled Sesquipedalian, Lost Adonis and Can't Be Asked, alongside Blue DJ. Credits go to Beau Boeuf on percussion and drums, Drumm Chimp on electronic drums, Hamilton Industries on mastering, and Derek J for "his prose and influence" on the single.
What I really like about Blue DJ is the contrasts – it's soft one minute and has a proper bite to it the next, it sounds intimate and quite big at the same time, and it's polished in places and pretty raw in others. And none of it feels forced, which is harder to pull off than it sounds!
Blue DJ is out now to stream or download, and the album is up for pre-order ahead of its 6 November release.