Today Norwegian artist Stian Westerhus is announcing his new 'Redundance' is set for release March 6th via House of Mythology. 

Following on from "There's A Light", which came out last year, the new single from the record "Chase the New Morning" is streaming online now.

Speaking about the track, Westerhus said

"'Chase the New Morning' is a song about the oppressive regime of China; it's ways of controlling the masses through technology and finance.

A new modern-life cultural revolution lifting millions out of poverty and into submission. Now, a year on from when I first wrote it, the song is

a direct homage to the Hong Kong riots. Liberate Hong Kong.

The revolution of our times."

If Stian Westerhus’s previous album Amputation sounded like a corporeal attack, a war being waged between voice and music, Redundance is the (relative) calm after the storm. That’s not to say it’s any less vital or engaged – just that a détente has been reached, the debris of conflict stripped back. Westerhus’s remarkable vocals are more upfront than ever – naked, raw and achingly melodic – while the instrumentation serves the songs rather than threatening to overwhelm them.
 
The passion and intensity remains though. Redundance confronts psychological trauma head on, Westerhus addressing an intolerable situation, cutting away at his personal history in order to forge a new way forward. There’s anger and sadness in here, but also a righteous desire to redefine the turbulence of the past, to tell the truth and to move on. As Westerhus sings on the title track, “Swallowed my pride just to keep us alive, but never ever again”.
 
Redundance faces out onto the world as well. Opening track ‘Chase The New Morning’ is a timely polemic against an oppressive Chinese regime that controls its citizens via online propaganda, a challenge to freedom that has been met with fierce resistance in Hong Kong.

It was writing about this political struggle and fighting for what’s rightfully yours that inspired Westerhus to reflect on his own situation and revisit songs he’d previously 

“never dared to record (for being) too direct, too simple”.
 
Against a synthetic, often minimal, backing, the deep, resonant cadences of Westerhus’s voice represent the indomitable human spirit on Redundance. He’s vulnerable on the jagged distress

call of ‘All Your Wolves’ before soaring on an ascending choral wave, while the spiky, skeletal groove of ‘Verona’ is transfigured by Westerhus’s harmonic acrobatics. And even as his voice

is distorted and submerged on the industrial funk of ‘There’s A Light’, he’s a man digging his

way out of darkness, tunnelling through the earth to deliver another blackly ecstatic chorus.
 
Westerhus’s reputation as a questing, idiosyncratic guitarist – both in collaboration (most recently with Ulver) and as a solo performer – is further enhanced throughout. Yet Redundance also

shows a more lyrical side to his playing.

Perhaps the most surprising track here is ‘Walk The Line’, a celestial acoustic ballad that edges into traditional singer-songwriter territory, before a dramatic swell of electric fretwork jolts us

from our reverie. At the other end of the spectrum, ‘Hold On’ is a grimy slab of sinister, robotic garage rock, Westerhus’s guitar wailing with glee.
 
Redundance is a mesmerising cry of defiance, a cathartic throwing off of destiny. 

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LIVE DATES

 

18.01 - Oslo; Nasjonal Jazzscene
19.01 - Vienna; Porgy and Bess
20.01 - Sarajevo; Sarajevo War Theatre
21.01 - Ljublijana; CD Club
22.01 - Munich; Schwere Reiter
23.01 - Ghent; Handelsbeurs
24.01 - Köln; Stadtgarten

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B I Z Z A R R E

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