Posts Tagged ‘steve osborne’

NTB interview

Picture by NTB/Scanpix

In a new interview with NTB, Morten talks about the process of choosing songs for the album:

“Ten songs aren’t much. But those are the ones that made it through our filters”, he says, referring to a team consisting of manager Harald Wiik, Erik Ljunggren and in part producer Steve Osborne. Especially Wiik and Ljunggren have what he calls “an entirely different taste in music”.

– But are you in control?

“I won’t let anything make it to the album that I can’t stand behind, I’m not compromising myself. I could have been more hands-on, but we’re a team”, he says, while admitting that his team’s views of what makes a good Morten Harket-song and his own views don’t always match up.

“a-ha would have benefitted from a larger degree of playful collaboration between the three of us. And that’s not been easy to accomplish on this album either. We’re all grown-up, busy people with obligations in life. The kids, your home life, bed times. Every day. You need to have a strong desire – strong enough to want to break free of your daily life in order to do it.”

Of the songs on the album, he describes “Quiet” and the title track “Out Of My Hands” as “classic, complete ‘me-songs’ “. He says the following about the latter song:

“There’s a lot of me in it. It’s a purely spiritual song, about where we come from and belong, and it makes quite a firm statement about the real nature of life – beyond the reality we experience.”

Morten preparing new solo album? (UPDATED)

According to the website of 140dB Management, UK producer Steve Osborne is “about to start work on a solo album for Morten Harket”.

Exactly when this was posted and how far along they are in the process is not known.

Osborne previously worked with a-ha as a producer, mixer and musician on the Foot Of The Mountain album in 2009. He also did alternate mixes of “Nothing Is Keeping You Here” and, most recently, “Butterfly, Butterfly (The Last Hurrah)”.

 

Update: The solo album info has now been removed from the 140db Management website.

In a message sent out to several fans, 140db Management writes the following:

“Steve is not currently doing any work with Morten. Unfortunately that is an error at this stage and nothing has taken place. One of our interns got over excited and has placed that on a page as he has been updating our website and assumed this project is happening. At this stage nothing has happened or is actually confirmed.

You can definitely pass the word as there is nothing going on at the moment. Of course that may change in the future but our official comment is that nothing is happening at the present time. Steve is currently working on a band from New York called Glint.”

(Thanks to “greeneyedgirl” and Carlos)

New a-ha single – “Foot Of The Mountain”

Single cover

Single cover

In a surprising move, a-ha and Universal Music decided to release the first single from the new album to radio stations in Norway today.

They are currently in the studio, and the single was finished last night“, a-ha manager Harald Wiik tells Dagbladet. “We have to turn around quickly, that’s how it’s become in this business“.

We took a decision very quickly, and saw no reason to wait“, he adds to Bergens Tidende.

“Foot Of The Mountain” was written by Magne and Paul, and is basically Magne’s solo song “The Longest Night” from 2008 with a new chorus.
It’s been produced by Roland Spremberg, who co-produced Minor Earth | Major Sky back in 2000. The mixing was done by Steve Osborne at Real World Studios and it was mastered at Metropolis in London.

The single will be available to buy on either 4 May or 11 May, I think. And the new album is set to be released on 22 June“, Wiik says.

a-ha will continue to work on the new album, using studios in Oslo, Stockholm og New York.

The press release is available on a-ha.com, and “Foot Of The Mountain” can be heard here.

 
In other news, a-ha will appear on a few German TV-shows next month – presumably performing the new single:

22 May: “The Dome”, RTL2 (taped in Munich)
30 May: “Germany’s next Topmodel” – final, Pro7 (taped in Cologne)

Powered by WordPress