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Morten was a guest on the popular German TV-show Willkommen bei Carmen Nebel yesterday, broadcast live on ZDF from the city of Fulda.
In addition to a short interview, he did a playback performance of “Scared Of Heights”.
Both the performance and interview can be seen on YouTube.
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Doing a cover version of “Scared of Heights”, the song originally recorded by Espen Lind in 2008, was a suggestion by Morten’s manager Harald Wiik. Initially Morten didn’t like the idea, but eventually he agreed to do it.
But it was Magne who came up with the original idea of using other Norwegian hits, Morten said in an interview in VG’s paper edition on Saturday:
“Magne came up with the idea that I should pick out good, Norwegian songs and take them abroad. I like that thought, and it’s something that I will pursue on my next solo albums as well. Not just to be kind, but because these songs will be relevant and more than good enough in markets where they haven’t been released before.”
Morten’s solo tour is starting today, at Palace of Sport in Krasnoyarsk, Russia.
“I haven’t toured in these areas as a solo artist before, and I don’t expect the audience to be familiar with my own material. But they do associate me strongly with a-ha, so it will feel natural to do some a-ha material as well“, Morten tells VG.
“Some of the songs feel more strange to perform than others. “Stay On These Roads” is an easy choice, as I played such a big part in creating it. But what about “Hunting High and Low”? Paul wrote it at an early stage, and for me it so clearly demonstrated our caliber. There are stories connected to it; when we were setting up to record it, Magne came up with this extremely beautiful piano part. Then he forgot what he had played. Things like that. Even if people associate that song with my voice, I’m not sure if I’ll perform it live”, he says in an extensive article in Aftenposten.
“Is the world ready for Harket without a-ha in 2012? We don’t know. Maybe we have the odds against us. But we do have a hope”, manager Harald Wiik says in the same article.
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Performing live on ARD, April 13th
You’d think perhaps Morten would be in Russia by now, preparing for the tour opening on Monday. Instead, he’s made another trip to Germany for more promotion.
This morning he was a guest on ARD’s “Morgenmagazin” in Cologne, where he also did the first live performance of “Scared of Heights”. The interview and the live performance can both be seen on YouTube.
While in Cologne he also appeared on the RTL show “Exclusiv” (video clip). There is also a new 2-part interview at VIP.de; Part 1 Part 2.
BTW, “Scared of Heights” has entered the German single chart at #48 in its first week.
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Interviewed on SWR1, March 27th
(Picture from swr.de)
Morten is in Germany this week to promote his new solo album and yesterday he was interviewed by two shows on the radio station SWR1 Baden-Württemberg, with hosts Stefanie Anhalt and Günter Schneidewind.
“I was committed 100% to a-ha while we were together, and so I didn’t really plan for anything. There wasn’t any time. And I didn’t want to separate myself into two halves – one planning for other things. So I was 100% committed in a-ha, committing to this final year as well. But when I went off stage in December 2010, I took a very needed break for a little while. But I knew instinctively that I would be doing more. There were a lot of things that I felt like doing. But when you do music, you do what you believe in, you know. I’ve done that with a-ha, always, and you reach for the things you believe in. And that’s what I do now”, Morten told Stefanie Anhalt in the first interview.
There’s a photo gallery and audio clips from both interviews on swr.de.
A new TV-appearance has also been announced; on April 11th he is scheduled to be a guest on Thomas Gottschalk’s talkshow “Gottschalk Live” on ARD, which is broadcast from Berlin.
The “Scared of Heights” 2-track CD single will be released in Germany on Friday this week. It includes a “Stockholm Version” of the song and can be ordered from amazon.de. The CD single is also available at amazon.co.uk, but with a later release date.
Morten was one of the artists performing in front of 2000 people at Telenor Arena in Oslo yesterday, as part of a corporate event.
Other artists performing included Jahn Teigen, Vamp, Rita Eriksen and Vinni. This according to an update posted on Twitter by Rita Eriksen.
Meanwhile, the music video for Morten’s international single “Scared of Heights” premiered today. It can be seen on Universal Germany’s website. According to a-ha.com the video was shot in Berlin, directed by Wolf Gresenz and produced by Mutter & Vater Filmproduktion.
And amazon.de has now posted 30-second samples of all songs on the album. You can hear them here.
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Morten has recorded parts of the new album in this old farmhouse from the 17th century
(Picture from Dagbladet)
Morten’s “Lightning”-single was released in Norway on Friday and can now be purchased from iTunes and other download shops. It can also be streamed in Spotify and Wimp.
Meanwhile, in Germany, the “Scared of Heights” 2-track CD single can now be pre-ordered from amazon.de, along with the Out Of My Hands album.
In connection with the “Lightning” single release, Morten has done a few Norwegian interviews in the last few days.
On Friday he was a guest on P4s Radiofrokost, where he talked about the new album and a variety of other topics. The complete 23-minute interview can be downloaded here.
Yesterday, there was a story on him in TV2’s Lørdagsmagasinet. The video clip can be seen on TV2.no or on YouTube.
There was also an interview in Dagbladet yesterday. Here are a few quotes:
“The collaboration with [Kent members] Jokke and Martin was very interesting on many levels, and I really like Kent. They are straight to the point, no bullshit, and they’re a friendly and seasoned bunch of guys. We wrote two of the songs on the album together, and there’s also an English version of “Kärleken Väntar”, for which I’ve written the English lyrics.”
“Burn Money Burn” is unavoidably a political song. It’s first and foremost about values, but there’s also a direct criticism of the money system we live by, which I quite frankly feel is extremely dangerous, because there are only certain values in life that can be measured in money.”
“I’m looking to find something new in myself by interacting with others. Incredibly exciting things can happen when different people come together, and that’s what I’m after. a-ha is also an example of this.”
“There are parts on this album that I feel are shamelessly commercial. And that’s fun. But the difference between a show like “Idol” and myself, is that they give people what they want, while I try to give people something they didn’t know they wanted. For me, that’s where pop music starts to get interesting.”
There was also an announcement made yesterday by a-ha.com, that Morten will do a solo concert at Sentrum Scene in Oslo on September 14th, as part of the 30th anniversary celebration of a-ha that weekend.
For more info about the events in September and a special fan pre-sale starting on Monday, check out this article on a-ha.com.
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Album cover, with photo by Just Loomis
(From a-ha.com)
The Out Of My Hands album cover was revealed on a-ha.com today, along with the single cover of “Scared of Heights” and a press release. The photos have been taken by Just Loomis.
“Scared of Heights”, the cover version of Espen Lind’s 2008 hit song, will apparently be the first single in countries outside of Norway (instead of “Lightning”), and is released on March 23rd. There will also be a music video for it.
The album’s title track, “Out Of My Hands”, has been written by Morten together with Norwegian producer Lars Hustoft – who posted a picture from the recording sessions on Facebook today. “I can promise you a VERY good pop album from the best vocalist we have in this country”, he says.
Meanwhile, an audio sample of “Lightning” has been posted on YouTube by Universal Norway.
The single has been getting mixed reviews, and Aftenposten‘s reviewer Svein Andersen isn’t particularly impressed by it, giving it a 2 out of 6 rating:
“With a title like this, one might expect some rumble and noise, but there is a surprising lack of energy here. “You would hit me like lightning”, he chants, and one can sense some kind of desperation in the lyrics, but musically you’re instead lulled to sleep. The melody is wrapped in an atmospheric production that rolls ahead in a monotonous drive without much drama or power.
It’s as if you don’t want to disturb. Even though Harket sings that he would have done anything to get his love back – we remain untouched. He sings with his characteristic voice, albeit in a restrained tone, but the vocals alone can’t make the song fly. Quite simply because the song is neither catchy nor interesting and doesn’t manage to take hold of you.
The feelings are sparkling and the blood is racing, he sings, but there’s no trace of Kent’s well-known darkness or a singer that does anything out of the ordinary here.
a-ha is history. Morten Harket continues his solo career, but this offering is too tame. After having heard “Lightning”, Coldplay (who consider a-ha a great influence) now seems almost like pure Metallica in comparison.”
Posted in Morten Tags: just loomis, lars hustoft, lightning, morten harket, out of my hands, scared of heights Comments Off on More album and single info
In the clip above you can hear the six song previews from Morten’s new album, reportedly called Out Of My Hands, that were played for fans in Rio yesterday.
The most observant among you may notice that two of the songs are cover versions – which doesn’t seem particularly imaginative…
The third one is originally a Kent song called “Kärleken Väntar” and was a massive hit for the Swedish band in Scandinavia in 2002.
The fifth song, “Scared Of Heights”, was originally written and performed by Norwegian singer Espen Lind, and was a big hit in Norway in 2008.
Here are links to more YouTube clips from the fan meeting in Rio:
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