“End This Now” - debut single from new group 10¹⁷ (Colin Stetson, Stian Westerhus, Erland Dahlen)
OUT NOW: End This Now
10¹⁷ came together after Colin and Stian met as artists in residence at the Monheim Triennale in Germany. Seeing each other's solo performance(s) and bonding over music, Stian asked Colin to come join him and drummer Erland Dahlen (who Stian’s been working with for ages) to see what they could sound like and they dove right into it, booking ten gigs in Europe. One after the other. No rest days. Pretty hard core with loads of driving and loads of playing. “It was a sort of trial by fire kind of ordeal where we thought we might just die after gig 4, and then after having finished in Copenhagen on day 10 we were all ready for another ten!”, says Stian, “It was really old school, and I love that. This is what a band is! Hard work. Figuring out stuff together and creating a sound that is truly unique. 10¹⁷ has always felt really important like that. It’s new and familiar at the same time.”
There was some really interesting music that came out of that tour, most of which was actually improvised in some way or another. “We hadn’t really rehearsed this stuff, riffs, ideas, forms and all, but we really wanted to keep it going so I booked a studio in Oslo for a week and we wrote some sketches out of what was the music from the tour. Colin came over and we laid down what became the basis of this album. Oh, and there is even a live track from the tour on the album!” - Stain Westerhus
“End this now” is a song about middle age and how being an adult still doesn’t make you less afraid of being in the dark forest of life all alone. Those young and naive steps in life that turned into secure footsteps down that long winded trail. You realise there has been so much time and life already. So much that time seems to have stood still for a long while. You’ve been simmering in it and it has become you as you have become it. As if it was this way, forever. And then you realise; this ends now. The plug is pulled. Lights are off. Keys don’t work. The roads don’t lead to where you think they should. What lies ahead is just new. New times. Just like a baby, into the unknown with a scream. “You saw it coming!?” Reality turns into a mere memory.
Like most songs on this album the lyrics are strongly inspired by friends and not so friendly people struggling with their life, as we probably all do. - Stian Westerhus
