A mythical ‘lost’ album by a-ha’s Paul Waaktaar-Savoy and Magne Furuholmen is to get a full re-release, 39 years on from its recording.

Våkenatt was the second release from the band bridges, a Norwegian psychedelic-rock outfit containing two future members of a-ha, alongside Viggo Bondi, Erik Hagelien and Øystein Jevanord.

While a-ha fans have long been able to hear the band’s first album Fakkeltog, its follow-up wasn’t released until 2018, but only on a limited run of a few hundred on green vinyl.

Now, finally, the ‘missing piece’ of the a-ha jigsaw is being made available as a vinyl LP, as well as on CD and all streaming sites. 

That first album failed to sell much on its first release, only picking up sales once a-ha made it big in the mid-80s, thus becoming an expensive must-have record for the a-ha completist. There was always rumour and talk of an unreleased second album, but nothing ever came to light… until an a-ha fan convention in Oslo at the end of April 2016.

Bondi and Jevanord were two of the guest speakers, talking the crowd through their time in bridges and the recording process of that first album. But as the presentation went on the two started to talk about the rumoured second album, confirming for the first time that it existed, and, not only that, Bondi had the tracks on his phone giving the audience snippets of some of the songs.

As a result, Paul’s sister, Tonje, who was also among the speakers at the convention, helped to convince her brother of the desire for this ‘lost’ second album to be brought to public attention. As a result, Paul along with Chuck Zwicky, mixed the album nearly 38 years after the initial sessions.

Våkenatt goes on sale on vinyl, CD and digital on 20 November.