Acoustic session on SWR1 Rheinland-Pfalz, March 27th
(Picture from swr.de)

Morten continued his promotional tour of Germany today. In Mainz he visited the studios of SWR1 Rheinland-Pfalz, where he was interviewed for two different shows. He also did another acoustic session together with Dan Sunhordvik. A photo gallery and a few interview clips have been posted on swr.de.

In Ludwigshafen he was interviewed by RPR1, where a lucky contest winner had the chance to ask him some questions. She asked if he’s going to play more solo songs on this tour, instead of a-ha songs, to which he replied: “More of me”. A picture with RPR1 host Inge Meyer has been posted on Facebook.

He also visited Radio Regenbogen in Mannheim, where he was met by a group of fans. A photo gallery can be found at regenbogen.de. Update: A video clip from the interview has been posted on YouTube.

Meanwhile on SWR1 Baden-Württemberg, another part of Barbara Scherrer’s interview with Morten was broadcast this evening. She asked him if he’s figured out the live versions of the songs yet:

“I’m not there yet, but I’m looking forward to warming up with the band and really starting to gel with the band. They’re very good actually, it’s a brilliant band.”

Even though he’s going on the road with a new backing band, Morten says that he’s hoping to play with Dan, Erik and Karl Oluf at some point as well:

“Dan Sunhordvik was part of the band that I had last time around, when I toured after Out Of My Hands. And that was also a great band, I was very happy with that band. Something else has happened this time around. The drummer that I played with on the Wild Seed album in 95, his name is Per Lindvall, he did sessions for this album, Brother, and he got so excited about the material that he said ‘I’m gonna play this. I’m gonna come with you live.’ And then he brought with him a couple of other guys. And that has been a tough decision for me, a difficult one. Because I want to play with both teams – and maybe I will. I’m kind of hoping I will. But this time around it’s with Per and a Swedish bunch. One guy is Danish – no, two actually. They’re two now.”

Oh, and here’s another acoustic version from SWR1 Baden-Württemberg – “Brother” performed with Dan Sunhordvik:

 
As for why “Did I Leave You Behind” was left off the album, Morten has told a German fan that it was because they only wanted to have 10 songs on the album, and it didn’t quite fit in with the others.

Brother

 
30-second audio samples of all the songs on Morten’s new album Brother are now available on Amazon. Listen to them here.

Update: 90-second samples in better quality are now up on iTunes UK, Ireland etc. If you can’t find them in your local iTunes Store, just change the country.

Album cover

Morten’s upcoming album Brother, to be released on April 11th, is now available for pre-order through Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.de.

Here’s the tracklist:
1. Brother
2. Do You Remember Me?
3. Safe with Me
4. Whispering Heart
5. Heaven Cast
6. There Is A Place
7. Oh What A Night
8. End Of The Line
9. Can’t Answer This
10. First Man To The Grave

For some reason “Did I Leave You Behind”, which Morten performed at every Night of the Proms concert, will not be included.

The final album cover doesn’t seem to be ready yet. So for now, the Amazon listings just include a combination of the “Brother” and “There is a Place” single covers.

Update: The cover art is now confirmed to be official, which is pretty shocking, considering how poor it looks. Was there no money left to hire a graphic designer?

Morten in the studio at NRK P1’s Nitimen
(Picture from Facebook)

Morten did another round of radio promotion today, which included P4s Radiofrokost, NRK P1’s Nitimen and Radio 102.

Here are some translated quotes:

“We have just delivered the finished album. Beyond this point you can’t change anything, you’re handing it over to others, so there’s been a lot to take care of in the final stages.”

“We’re not sure when [the music video] will be released. Harald Zwart has got a fair amount of post-production to do, so you won’t just see my nose above water for five minutes. There’s a lot of decision-making around the material that’s been shot, which partly decides when the album is coming out. We’ve been aiming for album release in late March, but with the ongoing post-production on the music video, I think we’re looking at early April instead.”

In addition, nine brand new promotional photos from the recent Mexico photo shoot have been posted on mlk.com. They were taken between 30 January – 1 February.