Stian Westerhus & Pale Horses - Maelstrom (2014)

Who says experimental musicians can't play pop? Norway's Stian Westerhus is best known as one of Northern Europe's most fascinating abstract guitar stylists. His recent album Didymoi Dreams with vocalist Sidsel Endresen was a fascinating pairing of extreme guitar abuse with gibbering vocal explosions. As well as collaborations with Puma, Terje Isungset, Nils Petter Molvær, Jaga Jazzist, the Britten Sinfonia and others, he has released three acclaimed solo albums on Rune Grammofon since 2009, the latest being the stunning The Matriarch And The Wrong Kind Of Flowers (2012). Stian now admits he's wanted to form a proper ' band for several years, and now he is exhibiting a totally different side of his musical personality. In Pale Horses, an electronic rock trio formed with keyboardist Øystein Moen and drummer/percussionist Erland Dahlen, songs are given the freedom to ebb, flow, elongate and contract, much like a more improvised set. Breaking out of a verse-chorus mould, debut album Maelstrom is a deluge of fluid and highly emotive tracks that rely on the superb musicianship and unforgettable vocals of the leader, who proves himself capable of expressing pain and joy in equal measure. I've been wanting to bring together my way of working with improvised music to this huge side of my music which circles around more traditional tune structures and melodies, says Stian. The idea was to write really clear simple stripped down tunes and bring them into this trio format with players who I've played hundreds of gigs with and to be honest are two of the most open-minded musicians I have ever had the pleasure of playing with . The idea is to have everyone know the tunes so well that you can stop playing the them as they were meant initially and what comes out is a shadow or a reflection of the tunes, just as fresh and tenderly played as any improvised music. Perhaps the most obvious similarities surprisingly are with the experimental side of Radiohead and Coldplay, but you'll also hear traces of Scottish bedroom romantics The Blue Nile and the psychedelic solemnity of late Talk Talk. A track like Bed On Fire , which rises from subtle digital textures to a full-on guitar solo, fully reveals these players' exploratory backgrounds; while Chasing Hills might have sat comfortably on Radiohead's leftfield-swerving Kid A. Arranged around a lush base of guitar, piano, keyboards and drums, the songs on Maelstrom were recorded at Oslo's Klang studio for a deep surround sound quality. Stian: The album was recorded on the most classic sounding Neve desk in Norway, and to me the sound of the album really reflects the broad brushstrokes in the music. It s been a tremendous process, from writing it, trying to figure out how to sing into a microphone, recording an album and taking this band to the stage. Funnily enough, I have never felt more free in my own music. From here to eternity: take the ride of a lifetime with Pale Horses.

TRACKLIST
01. Don't Say That You Care
02. Nights And Sleepless Days
03. Bed On Fire
04. On And On
05. Times Like These
06. Chasing Hills
07. Maelstrom