Joy by Normal Sorrow

Normal Sorrow was born in an aluminium womb at the foot of a heap of trash somewhere in Southern England. Galvanised through cataclysmic upheaval, it lurched into action in 2023, with me as its keeper.

‘Joy’ is the product of the widely misunderstood and not-so-widely covered phenomenon of severe antidepressant withdrawal syndrome, a hellish, state-approved analogue to narcotic withdrawal, and a ballooning health crisis set to explode in the next decade. What does it feel like? Take severe flu, add the worst migraine you’ve ever had, and crown it with violent mood swings. It has been a terrifying period of not being able to work, selling nearly everything I owned, and running up endless debt.

I needed a single, intense point of focus. Something to hold onto. ‘Joy’ was that - recorded piecemeal between bouts of severe tendinitis, which turned my hands blood red, and made it impossible to play guitar in anything other than bursts of a few seconds. It took 2 years to do, building a tower, brick-by-painful-brick. ‘Brother’ tells this story. ‘Man’s Best Friend’ tells this story. ‘Zoetrope’ tells this story. ‘Joy’ is all of it.

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Sweet songs that tell you terrible things. Noisy, primary colour melodies. Lo-fi trash in hi-fi.

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