Book cover
(Photo by Julian Broad)

Ørjan Nilsson’s new book Hjemkomst – Morten Harket 1993-1998 will be launched with an event at the Tanum Karl Johan bookstore in Oslo on Thursday 26 September, where Ørjan and Morten will talk about the book with music writer Audun Vinger. There will be a signing session afterwards.

Ørjan and Morten will also discuss the book at the literature house in Bergen on Friday 27 September, as part of the Vill Vill Vest music conference.

There will be a number of additional media appearances as well.

Hjemkomst delves deep into the making of Poetenes Evangelium, Wild Seed and Vogts Villa, as well as unreleased projects such as Morten’s 1993 solo album produced by Alan Tarney and his 1998 collaboration with Swedish-Irish drum’n’bass duo Boolaboss.

In addition to extensive interview sessions with Morten, Ørjan Nilsson has talked with a large number of key players from this period, including Håvard Rem, Ole Sverre Olsen and Kjetil Bjerkestrand.

The book also goes into detail about Morten’s work to shed light on the conflict in East Timor and his passion for renewable energy solutions.

Hjemkomst can be pre-ordered from Norwegian book stores such as Tanum, Norli, Haugenbok and Bokkilden.

Picture by Jakob

A new book about Morten Harket, written by Norwegian journalist Ørjan Nilsson, is set to be published in September 2019.

The book is called Hjemkomst (Morten Harket årene 1993 – 1998) [Homecoming (Morten Harket in the years 1993 – 1998)] and will focus on this particular period of the 1990s, which were Morten’s most busy years in terms of solo projects and political activism.

“I have long wanted to explore what happened to the activist and politically involved Morten Harket – the one who appeared when a-ha took a break and seemingly disappeared again when the band reunited. During those years he was everywhere, he had an entirely different edge than he’s had before or since”, Nilsson told VG in an article yesterday.

“It seems to me that he wants to speak in detail about these years – years that are important for him to shed a light on. He has become extremely involved in the book project and wants the end result to be good. I had envisioned three or four interview rounds, but by now it’s become more like 25.”

Among the other topics covered in the book will be Morten’s unreleased solo album from 1993, which was produced by Alan Tarney. It was eventually abandoned, in favour of Wild Seed. Although Morten has talked about the unreleased album in past interviews and two of the songs were leaked online fifteen years ago – “A Place I Know” and “Sounds of Rain” – the new book goes into more detail about the songs and recording process than ever before. Nilsson was even granted a listening session in Alan Tarney’s studio outside London.

Ørjan Nilsson has previously written Tårer fra en stein [Tears From a Stone] about Paul Waaktaar-Savoy’s life and music, which was published in Norway in 2017 and Germany in 2018.