“On ‘Square Peg In A Round Hole – Draft 7′ the original 24 bit masters from Draft 1 have been mastered directly to 24-bit goodness by Geoff Pesche at Abbey Road Studios in London. Electronic, distorted and acoustic sounds alike can be enjoyed in the way they were originally captured by Apparatjik. This exclusive draft of the album will be released in collaboration with our friends at Bowers and Wilkins and Society Of Sound.”
Morten will be in Rio de Janeiro on January 29 to celebrate the completion of his new solo album and reconnect with the South American fans! There will be a Q&A where Morten will answer questions from the fans, followed by a meet & greet opportunity.
Details:
Sunday, January 29 at 7:00 pm
FNAC Bookstore
AV. DAS AMÉRICAS, 4666 – BARRA DA TIJUCA – RIO DE JANEIRO – RJ
Due to limited seating space, we ask that you reserve your space here. Tickets limited to four per person, please. Please print your ticket and bring it with you to FNAC.
On his upcoming world tour, Morten will be performing his own solo songs and a selection from a-ha’s catalogue. Some a-ha classics will surely be part of the set list, however Morten would also like to include one a-ha song chosen by the fans!
Which a-ha song do you want Morten to include in his tour set list? Send us your vote by January 27!
To make it interesting, the general criteria for voting is:
1. The song cannot have been released as a single.
2. The song cannot have been performed live by a-ha since the comeback in 2000.
E-mail us your choice from the list below (info@mortenharket.com), and include the reason why you chose that particular song. You can share the reason either in writing, or via a short video clip. One vote per person, please.
The song that gets the most votes will be performed on Morten’s upcoming tour! The winning fans’ choice song will be announced at the end of the month, and five lucky winners will be chosen at random to receive a signed copy of Morten’s forthcoming album!
Eliglble songs for voting:
A Little Bit
Barely Hanging On
Between Your Mama And Yourself
Cannot Hide
Cold As Stone
Cold River
Don’t Do Me Any Favours
Fine Blue Line
Halfway Through The Tour
Hurry Home
I Won’t Forget Her
Less Than Pure
Make It Soon
Memorial Beach
Mother Nature Goes To Heaven
Out Of Blue Comes Green
Over The Treetops
Real Meaning
Rolling Thunder
Slender Frame
Solace
Start the Simulator
The Company Man
The Summers of our Youth
The Way We Talk
There’s Never A Forever Thing
This Alone Is Love
To Let You Win
White Canvas
White Dwarf
You’ll End Up Crying
This list is to the best of our knowledge – feel free to e-mail us corrections at info@mortenharket.com!
A little belated, but a no less heartfelt happy new year to you all! Thank you for your visits and comments here over the past year.
a-ha may have retired as a band back in 2010, but last year there were still some a-ha milestones to celebrate! Here is a look back at 2011, and a small preview of what to expect in 2012.
In early March, a-ha received the Spellemann Award of Honor. Morten and Magne were present at the Spellemann award show at the Oslo Spektrum and accepted the award on behalf of the band. See a short video of Morten on the red carpet after the show here.
To celebrate the release of the live DVD, a-ha.com sponsored an official release party in Berlin on March 25. Party guests watched an advance screening of the DVD and were surprised by an appearance from Morten! Morten spent about 30 minutes at the party, signing autographs and taking photos with the fans.
When tragedy struck in Norway on July 22, a-ha was asked to participate in a national memorial service to honor the victims and survivors of the terror attacks that shocked a peaceful nation. The memorial service took place on August 21, and a-ha took the stage again and performed a moving rendition of ‘Stay On These Roads.’
On November 6, a-ha was among the first five artists to be inducted into the Norwegian Music Hall of Fame, located in Trondheim, Norway. Magne was present to accept the honor on behalf of a-ha.
During the induction ceremony, Norway’s Minister of Commerce gave a speech about a-ha’s impact on the music industry. Watch a video of the speech here, however it is in Norwegian. If someone would be willing to make a translation or summary of the speech in English for us to share with everyone here on a-ha.com, we would appreciate hearing from you. (Please let us know if you intend to help with the translation, so there aren’t multiple people working on it! Thank you in advance!)
Finally, we closed out the year with another fun fan party in Oslo on December 3! It was great to see so many of you at the party and we hope you had a good time.
The guys were also busy with their solo projects in 2011.
Paul, together with Jimmy Gnecco, released a song called Weathervane back in June. They performed the song at the 27th annual Amanda Award Ceremony, which was broadcast live on TV2 from Haugesund Concert Hall on Saturday 20 August.
In the fall, Morten announced plans for a new solo album and world tour in 2012. So far concert dates have been confirmed for Russia, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, France and England between April and May of this year, with more dates to be announced soon.
Keep an eye on mortenharket.com and Morten’s Facebook Page – and of course a-ha.com – for updates about Morten’s new solo album and new concert dates.
Magne had an incredibly busy year in 2011. In March, Apparatjik released a new single, Combat Disco Music, and had an installation and several performances at Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin. Apparatjik also performed in Moscow and Graz last year, and participated in several workshops as well.
On November 11, Apparatjik released an iPad magazine which included – among other interesting media and interactive content – a new full length album. You can download the album for free from SoundCloud.
The band is now requesting input and remixes from the fans in a collaborative music project. For more information on this project and how to participate, visit apparatjik.com.
Magne, Paul Stolper and Hugo Opdal opened a new gallery called Stolper + Friends on September 1. Initially the gallery was going to be launched with an exhibition of works by Magne called ‘Futura Plus.’ However following the terror attacks in Norway, Magne cancelled the exhibition due to the ‘potentially upsetting nature of the works.’ Works from ‘Futura Plus’ were later shown at a group exhibition Under stor press at Dunkers Kulturhus in Helsingborg, Sweden.
On November 26, Magne’s exhibition ‘Echo’ opened at Stolper + Friends, and runs through January 15.
A preview of 2012
Both Morten and Magne have a busy spring ahead of them!
Morten’s new solo album has been recorded and will be released this spring. We expect some news about Morten’s tour and album very soon!
Apparatjik will release ‘Square Peg In A Round Hole’ on February 21, and the band is expected to announce live concert dates for 2012 as well.
Coming up in the second part of the year, the long-awaited official photo book by Stian Andersen, as well as the next official international fan party. We hope to have news to share about both the book and the party in the coming weeks.
Yesterday, Apparatjik made their second album available for free download on their Facebook Page. The album is called ‘Square Peg In A Round Hole’, and it is part of a larger project which also includes an iPad magazine and live performances in 11 cities next year.
The free album download is only the first draft, however. Apparatjik has announced that they intend to release 10 more versions of the album weekly, leading up to a final, official album release on February 21, 2012. The official release will incorporate input from the public via the band’s Facebook Page, in the form of comments, suggestions and poll responses.
If you want a more direct way of contributing to the album, you can also obtain the full stem files from apparatjik.com, by providing your e-mail address and agreeing to the terms of the music collaboration project. Once you have the stem files and the audio mixing software of your choice, you can remix the songs yourself and upload the result to Apparatjik for their consideration. The deadline to participate is February 7, 2012.
Here is a statement released by Apparatjik:
Apparatjik is chiefly a conduit for creative trip-wiring: first you find out how a thing works, then you break it. all children learn this way. all adults too. on the new album we have collaborated with other artists and now we want to invite our fans and other musicians to contribute by commenting, voting for ideas or taking raw elements from the album and work with, embellish and submit back to us. we have collaborated with our fans in this way for visual projects like ‘everybody is a pixel’ at the Neue Nationgalerie in Berlin and our new iPad magazine ‘apparatjik world’. this time we’ll try with music.
‘Square Peg In A Round Hole’ Tracklist:
Time Police
Sequential
Your Voice Needs Subtitles
Signs of Waking Up
Pakt
Combat Disco Music
Do It Myself
.,,. (dot comma comma dot)
(Don’t Eat The Whole) Banana
Gzmo
Super-positions
Control Park
Fans from around the world will be traveling to Oslo for a-ha’s final concerts in December, so it is the perfect time to celebrate a-ha’s career and their music!
Posted By: Catherine 
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Time Police
