Posts Tagged ‘paul waaktaar-savoy’

New Savoy single “Digital River”

Single cover

The second single from Savoy’s upcoming seventh studio album is called “Digital River” and was released today.

It can be streamed and downloaded through this link.

“Digital River” was originally part of a-ha’s Cast in Steel recording sessions in 2015, but didn’t make it onto the album. It later re-emerged as a live version played during the Hunting High and Low tour in 2019 and 2020. And now it has become a Savoy song, with vocals from both Lauren and Paul.

Paul has previously described the song as “ponderings on a virtual world competing with the real one”.

The song lyrics have been posted on Savoy’s Facebook page, with a music video to follow soon.

Update: Paul has posted some song credits on Instagram:
“Strings arranged by Joe Mardin, additional programming by Kurt Uenala, Chuck Zwicky, Eliot Leigh & Erik Ljungren, mixed by Simon Vinestock, mastered by Joe Lambert, artwork by Tom Korsvold.”

Savoy return with “Lonely Surfer”

Paul, Lauren and Frode are back with a wonderful new song called “Lonely Surfer”, which is released on their own label Eleventeen Records today. It’s the first single off their upcoming seventh studio album.

The song and accompanying music video, directed by Lauren, is heavily inspired by Paul and Lauren’s new California surroundings in Venice, LA, the area they moved to from New York in 2019.

In a press release posted on a-ha.com, Paul says the new single describes “characters surfing through their daily lives and random jobs in office buildings somewhere down the road, usually 40 minutes away – traffic depending. It’s an overcast California, but you can reimagine it in colour with ‘Lonely Surfer’s’ three-part harmonies and surf-rock overtones”.

He says the upcoming album, which was recorded in LA, will include “a lot of pop songs but there are different directions – harder songs with a New York edge too. Every song is approached from its own point of view, a fair amount is upbeat, a few uplifting songs, a lot of different rhythms. What I think of as individual colours. Releasing singles first and then the album gives you chance to crystallise it. Right now, I do know I’m looking for something shorter than the last album as a title – that had such a huge title!”

“It’s a cool change for us”, Paul says of their new sound. “We’re excited and ready to roll – excited about our past and our future.”

The newspaper Dagsavisen has reviewed “Lonely Surfer”, giving it 4/6 (paywall):
“This sounds West Coast, while the guitars lean toward Americana. Still, the Paul Waaktaar-Savoy trademarks emerge with big soundscapes and lots of air, plus some of his best ever vocals and with beautiful backing vocals by Lauren. And the surf is there, both in a sound that draws inspirations from Dick Dale’s guitars and more recent Savoy-favorites like Allah-Las, and in the overall atmosphere of the song.”

In connection with the new single, Paul has taken time to answer questions from fans in a Q&A posted in the Headlines & Deadlines a-ha Fan Group on Facebook this week. 43 questions in all, about a-ha, Savoy and more.

Mary is Coming 2023 remaster

The album cover features a photo by Bill Brandt and the band name in Paul’s handwriting

A new 2023 remastered version of Savoy’s 1996 debut album Mary is Coming was released digitally through Rhino/Warner on 26 May.

It’s now available for purchase from sites such as HD Tracks and Pro Studio Masters in stunning Hi-Res audio quality up to 96 kHz/24 Bit. You can also find it on streaming services such as Spotify and Tidal.

“We’re happy to announce that Savoy’s debut album ‘Mary is coming’ is finally available on all streaming platforms with a glorious remaster”, Paul wrote on Instagram today.

Lauren also posted about the release, writing “Our first album “Mary is Coming” is streaming for the first time. Catch a 90s vibe!”

Paul had previously posted a teaser clip for the remaster on Instagram on 18 April, writing “Mary is coming…back”.

The remastering has been done by Joe Lambert, who also did the 2016/17 remasters of Lackluster Me and Mountains of Time, and appears to include the full, unedited versions of the 11 album tracks. It does not, however, include the bonus track “Fade”, which can only be found on the original 1996 CD release.

Mary is Coming was praised by critics when it was released in 1996 and reached #1 on the Norwegian album chart. It spent a total of 10 weeks on the album chart and sold around 30,000 copies in Norway. A previous remaster was released digitally in 2006.

A reissue in physical format has not been announced so far, but Lauren says they’re working on it – along with a new Savoy album.

New a-ha interviews

a-ha on stage in Montreux, July 2022

All three a-ha members have done various press interviews in the last few weeks, to promote a new Super Deluxe Edition 6LP vinyl box set of Hunting High and Low. The set was released on 24 February by BMG, under license from Warner Music, and is available from Amazon UK and Amazon Germany.

Although the music content is exactly the same as on the 30th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition 4CD+DVD set first released in 2015 and reissued as an Expanded Edition 4CD set in 2019, it’s the first time this set has been made available on vinyl.

The new HHAL Super Deluxe vinyl box set

An unboxing video of the new Super Deluxe vinyl set has been posted on YouTube by Paul Sinclair of the SDE website.

Magne and Paul have both been interviewed (separately) for extensive articles in MusicRadar and Rolling Stone Germany, going in-depth about the early days of a-ha and the Hunting High and Low recording process.

Magne has also been interviewed by the website Cryptic Rock.

Meanwhile Morten has talked to UK’s Big Issue magazine, posted online in two different articles here and here, the Sunday Express newspaper, Retropop Magazine and RND in Germany.

Additionally, an interview with Paul appears in the recently published book Dancing to the Drum Machine: How Electronic Percussion Conquered the World, written by Dan LeRoy. The interview (which was done in early 2021) has also been posted online by the author on Substack.

As for what lies ahead, Magne mentioned in an Instagram post on 5 February that he’s working on a new album:
“in other news, i have started working on a new album, and trying to find creative ways of doing it differently this time, so that’s another thing to look backward to this year! plus there are the usual exhibitions, london in april among them, and so on.”

What kind of album Magne is referring to is still unknown, but he did mention in the Classic Pop interview in October 2022 that there may be a new Apparatjik album at some point: “We’ve talked about going into the mountains with acoustic instruments to make a folk album.”

Morten has been working on new songs with Peter Kvint that may end up as a new solo album: “I’ve started to write more lyrics on my own, and feel pretty happy about that”. There is also the possibility of a solo compilation album and a reissue of Wild Seed: “I might pull together a compilation from the totality of everything I’ve done that best represents me. But a reissue of Wild Seed might happen too”, Morten told Classic Pop last year.

Paul continues to be busy in the studio and his long-awaited Waaktaar solo album might see the light of day soon:
“I don’t want to give too much away, but it’s almost there. I had so many songs lying around, and this record will mean that I can sing some of those and have other people sing some, too. There is a lot of freedom to the album, I can say that for sure”, Paul told Classic Pop.

There is also a new Savoy album in the making, for which 12 demos were recorded with drummer Frode Unneland last summer.

More a-ha reissues could also be expected. Both a vinyl box set of the first 5 albums and new deluxe editions of Analogue and Foot Of The Mountain are in the works, according to a-ha manager Harald Wiik last year.

Paul turns 60

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Happy Birthday to Paul Waaktaar-Savoy, who turns 60 today, September 6th!

Hopefully we’ll see him back on stage with a-ha in four months time, presuming the tour is finally able to continue as planned.

His wife Lauren has posted a birthday message to him on Instagram, and fans can post their own greetings on the official a-ha Facebook page.

Movie trailer now available

The official trailer for a-ha: The Movie premiered yesterday, via articles posted by Variety in the US and VG in Norway.

It has also been posted by the production company on YouTube:

“I wanted to tell a story about their boyhood dream, and how incredibly difficult it really was to achieve an international breakthrough back then. About the future of a-ha. If there will be more music. I hope you’ll get to know them better as individuals and get a deeper understanding of the mechanisms within the band. This is not just a film about a-ha, but above all a film about Paul, Magne and Morten”, director Thomas Robsahm tells VG.

a-ha: The Movie will have its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York on June 12th – tickets for the outdoor screening are sold out, but streaming access can be purchased here (US only).

Meanwhile, the Norwegian premiere has been pushed back to September 3rd. Theatrical deals are also in place for Japan, Korea, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Austria and Switzerland, according to Variety.

Updates from Magne and Paul

A moment from the 2017 documentary a-ha Unplugged – På innsiden

Magne posted another new demo recording on Instagram last Thursday, which appears to be called “Time is on Your Side”.

This is the third new song he’s posted during the last month, following “I’m In” and “God is in the Details”.

Meanwhile, Paul has been sharing some newly drawn sketches on his Instagram, which can be seen here, here, here and here.
Paul has also been known to make paintings on canvas, some of which were part of his solo exhibition “Rammer” at Lillehammer in 1998. A selection of his paintings can be seen in this picture, posted by Augie some years ago.

As for new music, Savoy-drummer Frode Unneland was interviewed on the radio earlier this month, saying that Paul is working on lots of new songs at the moment. And according to last year’s Down To The Tracks-book, Paul already has a solo double album just waiting to be released.

New reissues and German book release

Purple vinyl reissue

A limited edition 30th anniversary reissue of East Of The Sun, West Of The Moon was released on 180g purple vinyl yesterday. This marks the first time the album is available on this format since the original 1990 vinyl release.

The East Of The Sun, West Of The Moon vinyl reissue can be ordered from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.de.

In connection with the reissue, Ørjan Nilsson has written a little piece for the Norwegian magazine Jazznytt, focusing on the man talking about “endless pain or endless pleasure” at the end of “(Seemingly) Nonstop July”. To find out more about him, Ørjan phoned up Paul in Los Angeles.

“I remember that day well. The song was recorded at Prince Street in Soho, in the middle of a heat wave. I was on the fifth floor with the window slightly open, when I heard this guy starting to yell out doomsday prophecies down on the street”, Paul says.

He hurried to point a microphone out the window.

German book cover

“The guy had great timing, as I didn’t need to edit the recording or move parts around afterwards. A one take wonder. He kept going for several minutes after the song had finished, with the same intensity, but the voice gradually became more distant as he disappeared down the street”, Paul tells Ørjan.

Meanwhile in Germany, Ørjan Nilsson’s 2019 book about Morten Harket’s solo career between 1993 – 1998, Hjemkomst, was published by Hannibal Verlag in a German version on Thursday, entitled Heimkehr.

The book has been translated into German by Daniela Stilzebach, who also translated Nilsson’s previous book Tears From a Stone. Heimkehr is available in a paperback edition, while the original Norwegian book came as a hardback edition with dust jacket.

Heimkehr is available from Amazon.de and Amazon.co.uk.

Våkenatt CD cover

This week also saw the announcement that Våkenatt, the second Bridges album from 1981, will be getting a wider release on vinyl, CD and digital on 20 November. The first single “Asleep” can be heard here.

Våkenatt was first released on green vinyl in a limited edition box set (900 numbered copies) by Rockheim Musical Archives in 2018, but will now get a worldwide release by Korova Records, which is a Warner Music imprint.

The vinyl and CD can be pre-ordered from thisisdig.com.

Waaktaar-Savoy update: Paul working on new album, Augie doing radio interviews

Picture by JS

Paul has been working in studios in Oslo this summer, on what seems to be a new album.

On 10 July he posted a video from his home studio featuring some new sounds.

Together with former a-ha drummer Per Hillestad he’s also done a few sessions at Studio Paradiso, one in late June and one in late July.

And on 15 August he did a string recording session at Studio Paradiso, featuring the a-ha string trio. The string score was done by Joe Mardin, and the Instagram post was tagged with #waaktaar and #newalbum.

Meanwhile, Augie did a couple of radio interviews last week, to promote his True August debut EP and the current radio single I “Can See You Clearly”. He appeared on NRK P2’s Kulturstripa on 28 August and NRK P13’s Selskapssjuk on 30 August.

Picture by Stian Andersen

On the True August EP, which has been getting great reviews, Paul plays the drums and bass (except for the programmed bass), while all guitar and synth parts were done by Augie. In the P13 interview he was asked what it’s like to work together with his father:

“It’s really cool. He’s a gear freak and really into strange drum machines, weird effects and stuff like that. He knows everything about music gear. So it’s great to get his input.

We listen to totally different music. So taking that gear and using it in a different way, that’s been really fun. There are some music genres that he usually stays away from. He’s not that keen on electronica, rap and stuff like that. So it’s cool to incorporate those influences in the music.

He’s very melodic, but in an indie-music style. Sometimes you want to abandon that and just create a certain atmosphere. That’s something he’s not that used to, so it’s cool to introduce that element.

But I have always assisted with his music as well. In the studio I would sometimes play on a song or come up with some ideas. It’s been a natural thing.”

Augie was also asked to pick one of his favorite tracks written by his father and he chose “Early Morning”.

Savoy: New podcast and magazine interviews

From the latest issues of Musikkpraksis and Norway Rock Magazine

Paul is the main guest in the latest episode of Norwegian guitar podcast “Kan du skru ned litt” [“Can you please turn it down a little?”], hosted by El Cuero guitarist Øyvind Blomstrøm. During the hour-long conversation, which was recorded in Oslo in early January, they talk in detail about Paul’s studio and live setups from the early days until today.

The podcast episode is available at acast.com, or in your preferred podcast app.

The magazine Musikkpraksis has an 8-page interview with Paul and Lauren in its latest issue (#1/2018), where the two of them talk about each track on the new Savoy album. There is also a 2-page interview with Paul in the current issue (#1/2018) of Norway Rock Magazine.

Both magazines are available in selected Narvesen stores across Norway.

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