"Maelstrom", the title of Stian Westerhus' new album, is the program: The guitarist and singer touches on it a bubbling mixture of styles, which fascinates again and again and draws the listener into itself. The Norwegian directs his band Pale Horses, which consists of keyboarder Øystein Moen and drummer Erland Dahlen, through experimental, psychedelic and prog waters and refines the whole thing with his expressive vocals, reminiscent of Jeff Buckley, Scott Walker and Chris Martin. As a child Westerhus discovered his passion for music.
In literature, in painting and also in film, the motif of the maelstrom is often used to describe a vortex of water that draws everything mercilessly into the depths. However, it is not so well known that there is a real model for this frightening vortex, which is thematized in Jules Verne's novel "20,000 Miles Under the Sea" and Edgar Allan Poe's narrative "Down into the Maelstrom": the Mosque Traumen, which lies between the Norwegian Lofoten Islands.
