Spirit Battle (lost unreleased Morten Harket album; 1979)

The album cover Morten illustrated.

Status: Lost

Morten Harket is a Norwegian singer, most known for being the vocals for the band A-ha. He also has had a solo career since 1993, but evidence shows he had planned a solo career much earlier.

The Album

Spirit Battle was recorded in 1979 at the Cross Music Studio, Morten supposedly worked on it with Geir Kolbu as well as his brother Håkon Harket. The album's recordings used the organ from the Trinity Church in Oslo, Norway. Supposedly the album was never completed, although some sources just say it was just left unreleased. The only thing to ever come out was the album's cover (supposedly finished by Morten long before the album was). Not even a single track from it is confirmed to exist.

It's unknown what type of music would have even been on the album, although it's likely to have been influenced by the progressive rock sounds from the earlier 70's. Early on, Morten took plenty of inspiration from bands like Queen, Uriah Heep, and Genesis, with him often times covering artists such as these in the later 70's .

Availability

Morten may have the original tapes from the recording session. Many demo tapes from his band A-ha, along with the band called Bridges (an A-ha precursor), have been found thanks to members keeping the old tapes. Geir is pretty mysterious, he really only worked with Morten in both solo writing and a band called Souldier Blue, Geir worked on a song for Morten's album Wild Seed which could possibly have originated from the Spirit Battle album.

Early 80's image of Morten's band, Souldier Blue.

Gallery

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  Black and white scan of album art illustrated by Morten

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  Another drawing by Morten possibly connected to Spirit Battle

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  Photo of Håkon Harket holding the album cover (in color)

External Link

• The Wikipedia page on Wild Seed. Retrieved 17 Nov '18