Musikkpraksis 3/2014

Morten appears on the cover of the current issue of Norwegian music magazine Musikkpraksis.

Inside there’s an 8-page article detailing the writing and recording process of the Brother album, featuring interviews with both Morten and producer Peter Kvint.

“We have built up this trust between us and have a really good collaboration going. There are creative sparks flying constantly and we always end up with something when we sit down to write. Often we’ll just sit there and jam, make melodies and just kind of float”, Peter Kvint tells the magazine.

The song they struggled the most with on the new album was “Safe With Me”, which Morten feels suffers somewhat from the production:

“That’s a very primal song, basic and simple, but also very distinct. So we had remove all the extra fluff and crap. Still we didn’t manage to remove enough crap, there are still things in there that disturb the pure nature of the song. But that’s OK, it’s not too bad. I’m at peace with it. (…) But that’s also one of the songs I like the most on the album. That one, “There Is A Place” and “Brother”. Those songs have the clearest identities.”

Morten is also honest about how Out Of My Hands and the collaboration with Steve Osborne didn’t end up exactly as planned:

“What happened was that Erik [Ljunggren] and I didn’t reach the level of contact that we really wanted with Steve Osborne. (…) Steve really has a lot to offer and is a very interesting musician and producer, but I didn’t feel that we managed to bring out the best in each other.”

Peter Kvint is asked about Morten’s abilities as a guitarist:

“I think he plays really great! Of course he doesn’t know guitar tabs and things like that, so there’s no use in suggesting ‘F major’, he he. It’s like he doesn’t want to learn those things, he wants his head to be clear – and that works for him. He likes things that are a little odd, unusual chord progressions for instance. He’ll often slip in a chord you wouldn’t have expected.”

The full article can be found in Musikkpraksis #3/2014, available now.