Ultima Thule (Latin for "Farthest North") is a Swedish rock band. Their style is based on what they call Vikingarock ("Viking rock"), which combines occasional folk melodies with rock, mixed with Oi!, street punk and Teddy Boy. Some of their lyrics are versions of poems and traditional songs by Evert Taube, such as "Änglamark". They have also released several versions of Sweden's national anthem, "Du gamla, Du fria'". They have been described as a white power band,[1][2] though ethnomusicologist Benjamin R. Teitelbaum argues that this classification is much too simplistic.[3] The band also rejects the description, saying they oppose fascism and racism.[4]
För Fäderneslandet is Ultima Thule's most popular album, selling more than 100,000 copies. Vikingabalk, their second best selling album, went gold with more than 80,000 copies sold.
History
Ultima Thule was founded in early 1984 in Nyköping, Sweden. Band members have cited the Sex Pistols and late seventies punk rock as their main inspiration. Their songs were a mixture of Nordic folk music, rock and punk. The group has described this particular style of music as Vikingarock. The singer Bruno Hansen was an active member of The Nordic Realm Party.[5]
After a few years as an underground band, the band entered the mainstream in the early 1990s when they signed a record deal with Mariann Grammofon. Following media controversies,[citation needed] Mariann Grammofon quickly cancelled their record deal with Ultima Thule. After that, the band created their own record label, named Ultima Thule Records.
Ultima Thule has sold one certified platinum and three gold albums in Sweden,[6] and managed to have three singles on the 20th-best hits list at the same time.[7] Their lyrics are mostly in Swedish, with only a few songs in English, including covers of bands such as Sham 69 and Ronettes.
Their first vocalist, from 1984 to 1986, Bruno Hansen, was the leader of the Nyköping "action group" of the Nordic Realm Party.[5]
Ultima Thule successfully entered the mainstream when they were signed up by Bert Karlsson, a record manager and founder of the New Democracy party. The band seems to have had a mail-order distribution deal with the record company Ragnarock at some stage.[9]
Between 1984 and 1987 the band played at about 30 skinhead concerts. On 6 June 1987 they played together with Agent Bulldogg, Vit Aggression and Dirlewanger at a white power concert in Södertälje.[5] On 30 November 1991, the band played at a white power concert with Vit Aggression and Division S.[5]
In 1994 Ultima Thule opened a record store, CD-butiken, where they sold records by Heroes in the Snow, Svastika and Vit Aggression.[5] The band also started a fan club that at one point had 900 members.[5] Through the club they sold records, posters and T-shirts, not only for their own band but also for the record companies Last Resort Records and Ragnarock Records.[5] Ultima Thule's recording studio in Nyköping was burnt to the ground by arsonists on 10 February 2000.[10]
Band's reaction
To respond to the allegations of racism, the band issued a statement on their website making clear they do not consider themselves racist, nor are they neo-nazis. In their own words,
"This country must ask itself about its mental health, when patriotic songs about Sweden, when texts from our history books, are deemed equivalent to racism. [...] We live in an increasingly shrinking and globalised world and in one way, it is important for people to know their own roots and for people to feel their national pride. If we Swedes are not allowed to show esteem and pride about our own country without being called racists, this makes [it] much more difficult to show others respect for their own particular identity and singular characteristics. [...] We have taken note of our right to be proud of our own country and we do not tolerate some obscure publication linking our music with racism and Nazism."[11]
During a concert in 2001 some members of the audience made Roman Salutes. The band stopped playing to make clear that they did not want to be seen playing for Nazis.[12] About a year after that they were interviewed in the National Democrats' magazine Nationell Idag where the band members declared they wanted a strong leader such as Jörg Haider and Jean-Marie Le Pen.[12]
↑ Teitelbaum, Benjamin (2013). “Come Hear Our Merry Song:” Shifts in the Sound of Contemporary Swedish Radical Nationalism. Ph.D. Dissertation, Brown University. p.61
↑ Teitelbaum, Benjamin R. (2017). Lions of the North: Sounds of the New Nordic Radical Nationalism. Oxford University Press. p.xi.
Kent was a Swedish alternative rock band formed in Eskilstuna in 1990. With members Joakim Berg, Martin Sköld, Sami Sirviö and Markus Mustonen, the band had numerous radio hits throughout Sweden and Scandinavia and consecutive number-one studio albums on the Sweden top list (Sverigetopplistan) beginning with the release of Verkligen (1996) and led by the single "Kräm ". With origins rooted in distorted rock, they found mainstream success through their alternative rock albums of the mid-1990s, 2000s and 2010s, the latter decades during which they adopted elements of synthpop.
The Sweden Democrats is a nationalist and right-wing populist political party in Sweden founded in 1988. As of 2022, it is the largest member of Sweden's right-wing governing bloc to which it provides confidence and supply, and is the second largest party in the Riksdag.
"Du gamla, du fria" is the de facto national anthem of Sweden. It was originally named "Sång till Norden", but the incipit has since been adopted as the title.
White Aryan Resistance was a militant neo-Nazi network active in Sweden between 1991 and 1993.
Per Allan Magnus Claësson Uggla is a Swedish artist, composer, actor, and occasional radio host. He is known for his satirical lyrics.
Pohjola, sometimes just Pohja, is a location in Finnish mythology. It is one of the two main polarities in the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala, along with Kalevala or Väinölä.
Klas Henrik Pontus Lund is a Swedish neo-Nazi and since 2019 the leader of the combat organisation Nordic Strength.
Viking rock is a rock music genre that takes much of its themes from 19th-century Viking romanticism, mixing it with elements of rockabilly, Oi! or street punk, and folk music. Frequent themes occurring in Viking rock include vikings and Norse mythology, as well as Sweden's King Karl XII and the Caroleans.
The Community of Forn Sed Sweden, formerly the Swedish Asatro Community is a heathen organization founded in 1994.
Asta Kask is a Swedish punk band from Töreboda, Sweden, founded in 1978. Asta Kask plays melodic punk music with Swedish lyrics; they are a foundational band for the musical subgenre known as trallpunk.
Rebelles Européens was a French independent record label that operated between 1987 and 1994, specialising in white power rock and Rock Against Communism. Based in the port city of Brest, the label was founded by Gaël Bodilis, a member of far-right groups including the Front Nationale Jeunesse, Troisième Voie, and PNFE. Rebelles Européens was, alongside German label Rock-O-Rama Records, a key player within the international white power skinhead music scene during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Unlike Rock-O-Rama, whose owner was apolitical and commercially minded, Bodilis primarily conceived of Rebelles Européens as a means for spreading neo-fascist ideology, and denied any interest in the profitability of his enterprise. Rebelles Europeéns was notable for its brazen inclusion of Nazi and white-supremacist symbols on album covers; Robert Forbes and Eddie Stampton suggest that the label "seemed to operate without regard to the law". After a pause on production in 1993, Rebelles Europeéns went out of business in 1994, with Australian label White League reissuing a small number of their releases on CD in 1995.
Glittertind is a Norwegian indie folk-rock band, which started up as a one-man project in 2001 featuring Torbjørn Sandvik as the driving force. In 2010, the band had a full line-up that consisted of Sandvik doing vocals and rhythm-guitar, Geirmund Simonsen playing accordion, rhythm-guitars, programming, Stefan Theofilakis on flutes, Geir Holm on drums, Olav Aasbø on lead-guitar, and Bjørn Nordstoga on bass.
Charta 77 is a Swedish punk band formed in 1983 in the Swedish town Köping. The band consists today of Per Granberg, Teijo Granberg (drums), Erik Ullvin (keyboard), Janne Olsson (guitar), Stefan ¨Mongo" Enger (bass). The band is a very popular live act, and often plays on music festivals.
Swedish folk music is a genre of music based largely on folkloric collection work that began in the early 19th century in Sweden. The primary instrument of Swedish folk music is the fiddle. Another common instrument, unique to Swedish traditions, is the nyckelharpa. Most Swedish instrumental folk music is dance music; the signature music and dance form within Swedish folk music is the polska. Vocal and instrumental traditions in Sweden have tended to share tunes historically, though they have been performed separately. Beginning with the folk music revival of the 1970s, vocalists and instrumentalists have also begun to perform together in folk music ensembles.
Johan Georg Johansson is a writer and musician. He is most famous for his time as songwriter and drummer for the Swedish punk-rock band KSMB.
Popsicle is a Swedish pop group in Piteå, Sweden, which together with This Perfect Day, The Wannadies and Brainpool started the 1990s indiepop wave in Sweden.
The Bristles is a raw punk band formed in 1982 in Landskrona, Sweden. The name comes from GBH 12-inch Leather, Bristles, Studs and Acne.
Hans Kennert Mattias Hedarv Karlsson is a Swedish politician who served as Leader of the Sweden Democrats in the Riksdag from September 2014 to November 2019. He has been a Member of the Riksdag (SD)since October 2010. He previously served as Leader of the Sweden Democrats from 2014 to 2015. He currently heads the conservative think-tank Oikos. Since 2022, he has also served as the party's international outreach secretary.
Dunderpatrullen is a Swedish electronic music group from Östersund, Jämtland. Their music is mostly based in the bitpop sub-genre of chiptune, but has deviated into other territories such as synthwave and EDM. Much of their inspiration comes from classic retro video game composition, often referencing and basing composition off of classic chiptune techniques in a modern context. The band has found success within the gaming enthusiast sphere, playing for events such as DreamHack and NärCon, as well as being relatively popular among the Geometry Dash community.
Klas Magnus Söderman is a Swedish far-right activist who is a former spokesman of the Nordic Resistance Movement.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
