The working titles of Helvete

Posted: October 11, 2018 16:59:09 by ANDERS JAKOBSON

"Helvete" celebrated 15 years earlier this year. While going through some boxes in the basement I found this pages in a notebook from the moment Mieszko and I made up the final track order and distributed the samples between some of the songs.
replicatime.me

The notes in parentheses are descriptions of the breaks between the songs, which are nothing out of the ordinary, but the fun thing about these pages are working titles. Some of them are basically the name of the band that the song was in some way inspired by, while others are a description of the unique thing of the song. And then there are the weird ones...

(Click on the image for a bigger version...)

Here’s the list with some short explanations to why the working title was chosen. As most of the titles are in Swedish all you non Swedish-speaking people can see this as your first lesson! Here we go:

1. Arslet (Violation)

The title is Swedish for "The Arse", which stems out of "arsel" being an intensifier, as in "arselsnabb", "arselmangel" and so forth. "Violation" was a song "fast as an arse" or something. It really makes no sense in English…

2. Tool (Scoop)

The main riff in "Scoop", as played as intro, chorus and outro has a certain Tool vibe.

3. Ryckig (Living Next Door to Malice)

This is Swedish for "Jerky" which is a way to describe the short breaks and stops in the beginning of the song.

4. Plockriff (Stormshield)

Swedish for "Picking riff", which sort of describes the unique parts of this song.

5. Krånglig (Time to Discharge)

Another Swedish "-ig" word, meaning "complicated". Apparently Mieszko thought my riffs and/or arrangement was a bit of the complex kind.

6. Snapcase (Bullshit)

I would imagine that this reference to the hardcore band is connected to the final part of the song that sort of sounds like Snapcase.

7. Breach (Relics)

Yet another title referencing another band. We loved Swedish Breach and they certainly inspired this track.

8. Snabba (We Curse You All)

Swedish for "The fast (one)", as if this song is faster than any other on the album?

9. Mycket grind (Doombringer)

"Lots of grind" is the translation of this title, which came out of the multiple blastbeat parts in the second half of the song.

10. Carcass/Metallica (Just Another Hog)

Well, how about that? Two "band titles" in one song! The intro made us think of Carcass for some reason and the following verse riff is basically a version of Metallica’s "Battery" riff. Thus: "Carcass/Metallica".

11. Punkgrind (Drop Dead)

This song was inspired by the hardcore punk based blastings of Drop Dead, so the working title and the final title is no surprise…

12. Mycket käng (I Hate People)

"Käng", short for "kängpunk", is the Swedish word for crust punk or d-beat based punk. The word "känga" or "kängor" is actually "boot" or "boots". Anyway, this particular title means "Lots of d-beat parts".

13. Grindig (Go!)

Well, you know the "-ig" words by now, so this is "Grindy"!

14. Crowbar (The Final Sleep)

Yep – Crowbar brought the inspiration for this song.

15. Fladder (Slaves to the Grind)

The title means "Flutter" and is a reference to some riff in the song that has some quick finger movements.

16. Jeppe 1 (Breach of Integrity)

Jesper’s first Nasum song.

17. Death glatt slut (The Everlasting Shame)

This is a weird one. "Death" is not a reference to the band, but to "death metal", and "glatt slut" means "happy ending"… Of the song, that is, you pervert! So: "Death (metal) happy ending (of the song)".

18. Bisvärm (Your Words Alone)

"Bisvärm" is a descriptive word for a certain type of riffing that was made popular by Eucharist and At The Gates (among others) in the 90’s. It’s "Bee swarm" in English and you know what kind of riffs I am talking about.

19. Thrashgrind (Preview of Hell)

Thrash metal + grind core = thrashgrind.

20. Jeppe 3 (Illogic)

Jesper’s third Nasum song, obviously.

21. Suffer the Nasum (Whip)

This was the song we wrote with the sole intention of bringing Shane Embury to the studio to track some bass (which also happened). It has a certain Napalm Death vibe, and perhaps some extra inspiration from "Suffer the Children".

22. Orientalisk (Worst Case Scenario)

The title means "Oriental" which came out of a long intro to the song that we cut during the mixing process. It was a semi-improvised part that had a certain oriental sound, and it was featured all the way until the mixing when we decided it was too weird and that song benefited from a more direct start.

Would you like see more stuff like that? Support the Go fund me page for The Rare Nasum or buy the "Inhale/Exhale" rehearsal for as little or as much you want. There are lots of stuff in the vault just waiting to be unearthed…

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Happy birthday, Inhale/Exhale! Let´s celebrate big!

Posted: May 26, 2018 14:16:48 by Anders Jakobson

Today it's the 20th birthday for "Inhale/Exhale". It was originally released May 26 1998. It's strange how time flies. In one way it doesn't feel like 20 years have passed, but it another way it really feels like that. Nasum has done a lot over the years, but still... Wow! 20 years!

My life has had a number of mile stones and this album is certainly one of them. Without the unexpected success of the album I had never been where I am today musically, so thanks for that "Inhale/Exhale"!

Obviously I want to celebrate. Today I launch a celebration page for "Inhale/Exhale" with a number of nuggets from the vaults, for example a 25 song in studio-rehearsal from 1997 with five songs NOT used on the album! This is pure gold for the die-hard Nasum fans, and I hope to be able to bring more stuff like this from the vault in the future.

The rehearsal is available FOR FREE at TheRareNasum.bandcamp.com which I hope can develop to be a home for a number of rare audio stuff, because I have lots. But to be able to locate everything and prepare it for free releases like this first rehearsal, I need some funds and I have put up a GoFundMe page for this sole purpose. Obviously you can donate funds through Bandcamp or just directly by contacting me at nasum@nasum.com. I'd really like to do a focused excavation of the vaults and get all this good stuff out there for everyone to enjoy.

But today we celebrate "Inhale/Exhale". Don't miss the celebration page with the rehearsal, comments and some other stuff. There ARE more to come...

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The design that would not leave

Posted: March 21, 2018 17:16:07 by ANDERS JAKOBSON

Back in early 2000 I started working on a t-shirt design for Nasum. I had a rough recycle symbol that I combined with an eye. I combined that piece of graphic with the logo and a clever phrase, ”Eye see lies”, a play on words from the ”Inhale/Exhale” song ”I see lies”. I remember that Mieszko liked it. However we never printed it and did a completely different design instead with a very famous mosquito picture and the text ”The Black Swarm”. That became the second official ”printed by the band” t-shirt from Nasum, see the Merch History for this design.

When we were about to embark on the seven week long tour with Napalm Death in the fall of 2000 we made one (1) design with the recycle graphic inside a ring with ”NASUM - GRINDCORE…” repeated. This single design was supposed to be our income/salery for the tour, as all of the other money went to recoup the tour support Relapse paid. Today I would not go on such a long tour with only one design (although we had ”Inhale/Exhale” and ”Human 2.0” design, but they were Relapse’s and not ours).

Years later that version of the design, minus the tour specific back print, was reprinted but with green color. I liked that combination a lot.

The recycle graphic stayed in the back of my mind, and followed me with every new computer I got. It inspired the ”Shift” graphics and it’s also featured in the footer of nasum.com.

On the US leg of the Farewell Tour in 2012 we decided to quickly make a limited edition t-shirt for Maryland Deathfest and the only thing I had available in high resolution in my computer was the recycle graphic. So 50 t-shirts were made and sold in a few minutes.

This design will not leave me alone. That’s quite obvious. And while I was going through the archives looking for something else recently the old file was there again, wanting to be used. So I did a ”Recycle 2018” version. I added a new and better eye and polished the edges slightly. I decided to have the logo at the bottom to get a triangular feeling and finished off with some ”distress”. The new bottle green color more or less happened by incident and it looks really cool.

The t-shirt is available exclusively from Selfmadegod Records. Check it out!

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First Nasum gig ever on YouTube

Posted: January 23, 2018 10:56:56 by ANDERS JAKOBSON

After 22 years and change, I’ve re-experienced the first Nasum gig EVER as a video has been uploaded to YouTube. Sweet memories? Well, not entirely…

Where to start? Perhaps by telling the complete story. The recording of ”Industrislaven” became Rickard’s last effort as a drummer and singer of Nasum. We recorded it in February of 1995 and when the release of the MCD drew nearer half a year later we got an invitation to do a show in Berlin as a sort of release party. Rickard said that he didn’t want to do any shows and departed from the band. We weren’t really drowning in grindcore drummers at that time, but we managed to find a stand in drummer in Per ”Perra” Karlsson. A former local guy that had moved around in Sweden and made a little career as a death metal drummer in Suffer. Perra was a solid drummer who perhaps didn’t really get the crust punk side of Nasum, but could deliver some mean blast beats when needed.

We did a few rehearsals with him and taught ourselves how to sing and play our own songs. Mieszko and I decided to split the vocal duties and I got to be the guitar player while Mieszko handled the bass. A weird line-up for sure.

Somewhere along the way we got a gig in Åstorp in the south of Sweden, on the way to Germany. Mieszko and I had been there a year or two earlier with our punkband Charles Hårfager, so that became the very first Nasum show. I don’t remember a lot of details apart from Mieszko breaking a string on the bass during soundcheck so we had to borrow a bass from one of the other bands, most likely Arsedestroyer. It’s also possible that we borrowed a double pedal from their drummer as well as I have a slight memory of Perra complaining about some mysterious screws in the pedal.

So, this show is what has been added to the many millions of videos on YouTube. The video is just 16 minutes long and it’s hardly the entire show. There should be at least 10-15 minutes missing before the clip begins. Sadly, I don’t have any old notes about the setlist, but I would suspect that we started with ”Löpandebandsprincipen”, ”Cut to Fit" and a few other ”hits” from ”Industrislaven”. But we’re not getting that in the clip, we start of with a poorly played cover song instead. Ouch!

This is the playlist in the video:

1. Dom styr våra liv (Mob 47 cover... sort of...)
2. Krigets skörd
3. Scarecrows
4. Escape   
5. Revolution   
6. No Time to Waste
7. Stalemate (Napalm Death cover)
8. Re-create the System
9. Domedagen
10. Dolt under ytan
11. I helvetet
12. Smile when you're dead
13. For some reason just improvised noise

The last ”song" is embarrassing as hell! Perra alternates between blast beats and d-beats while Mieszko sings and plays ”something” and I’m going full on Sonic Youth on my poor guitar, perhaps as a result of a broken string? So pointless! We did something similar the next day when we improvised ”black metal”, which the Germans seemed to like though…

As for the show at Knaack Club in Berlin I remember two things in particular: 1) When I saw the ”Industrislaven” MCD for the first time I was so extremely disappointed with how the front cover had turned out as it wasn’t at all as we had wanted it to be. (Another disappointment was when I listened to it and realized that the track-list had gotten fucked up… [read more here]) 2) Perra lost his notes after the Åstorp show and although we sort of wrote them all over again it was obviously a psychological thing and most of the arrangements got screwed up.

I wonder if there are some videos from that show as well… If so, get in touch!

Back to the first show with some final reflections:
* I wish the clip was complete because I like the songs! Many years passed until the next time Nasum played live and became a touring band, and most of these songs didn’t make it to future setlists as we had the albums to chose songs from.
* I was slightly afraid of hearing the vocals, but it sounds quite OK in this clip. I guess a crisp soundboard recording of the show would have unveiled the truth. It’s quite fun to see long-haired me and Mieszko on stage. I would say that we only shared a stage in this manner - upfront, that is - three times in total, so it’s quite special.
* Also, one can argue who wore the worst outfit in the clip - me in a Nasum t-shirt and khaki pants or Mieszko in his white long-sleeved shirt? Goddamnit...

Anyway, thanks to Anders Nilsson who uploaded this clip, and thanks to Jonas Alfons who was the original promotor and who held the camera back in 1995. And obviously, thanks to Perra who shared the stage with us those two days in September 1995. For a current dose of Perra, check out Dreadful Fate.

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Preorder brand new official merch!

Posted: November 20, 2017 18:12:02 by Anders Jakobson

About five years ago we opened the Nasum shop again after the Farewell tour had folded. We had a few boxes of leftover merch that since then have sold out. There were also some stuff from related bands and during the years a number of "new" releases have been added (like the 7" version of "Domedagen" and the vinyl represses of all the albums and "Grind Finale").

But no new Nasum clothes. Until now - today you can preorder a brand new design and the classic Nasum logo in the first time printed with gold ink, and we will do a totebag with the logo as well.

Here's a mockup of the brand new design:



Actually, this design was originally created while we were preparing designs for the Farewell tour and we opted not to print it then because we had so many designs to choose from. I really liked the design and wanted to do it someday, and with some minor adjustments that day is finally here.

This design was made by Robert Samsonowitz (rbrt.org) who designed the "Shift" CD/LP back in 2004, and some elements from the album artwork can be spotted in this design.

As Robert is doing a year long tour (summer 2017 to summer 2018) with his old hardcore band Adhesive where ALL profits goes to Médécins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) a part of the sales of this particular design will be added to Adhesive's fundraiser.

As of now we're accepting preorders for the three new items, where the t-shirts have a lower price. We are also taking preorders for t-shirts in bigger sizes (2XL-4XL) that will be printed on demand and not be stocked once the preorder is over.

The preorded expires mid-December so place your orders right now at the merch page!

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Scarecrows IV: The t-shirt

Posted: June 22, 2017 13:37:37 by ANDERS JAKOBSON

On the very first Nasum recording, ”Blind World” - the split 7” EP with Agathocles, I wrote some lyrics to a song Rickard wrote. It was ”Scarecrows”, in which I described stale politicians as scarecrows ”on a field”. A few recordings later I wrote ”Black Visions” for the ”Smile When You’re Dead” split 7” EP with Psycho and yet again I used scarecrows as a description for politicians not doing anything. So the song got the parenthesis title ”(Scarecrows II”).

Then, yet another few recordings down the line, I concluded the trilogy with "The Final Confrontation (Scarecrows III)” on the ”World In Turmoil” 7” EP. I don’t know why this theme didn’t continue on further recordings (although that type of ignorant politician described as scarecrows certainly figured in numerous lyrics during the years), but now many years later ”Scarecrows IV” is here - as a t-shirt.



I was contacted by Darius Alas, an artist in Estonia who wanted to do a t-shirt design and when we started discussing ideas I re-read some old lyrics to see if there was something to work from and got stuck on ”Like scarecrows on a field, you stand stale and quite” - the chorus from the original ”Scarecrows”. That felt Nasumish and easy to work with from an artistic point of view.

So Darius got cracking and after a couple of weeks the design was finished and is now available from Selfmadegod Records. It’s a great design and doing a white t-shirt for a change felt really good and fitting for the design. Thanks a lot for your work, Darius!

Check out his design studio Midiankai Arts at Facebook.

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Nasum vs Soundgarden

Posted: May 18, 2017 20:52:54 by ANDERS JAKOBSON

The sudden and tragic death of Chris Cornell struck me really hard as I've been a fan of his and Soundgarden for many years. I am especially fond of the later Soundgarden albums, "Superunknown" and "Down on the Upside", from their first period. I've listen to them countless times. I really liked the dynamic within the band, where all the members contributed with songs. Matt Cameron is an amazing drummer that has a style that I really liked, but obviously the big selling point was the soulful and amazing voice of Chris Cornell.

As I write this it's been confirmed that he took his own life, which saddens me a lot. Rest in peace...

Back in the 90's Soundgarden actually inspired a few Nasum songs, how strange it may sound. I believe the working title for "Feed them, Kill them, Skin them" was "The Soundgarden song" as Mieszko borrowed some ideas from "Jesus Christ Pose". Here are the songs, listen as see if you can spot the similarities.

Then we have "When science fails" that I probably took a lot of inspiration from "Spoonman" when it comes to the rhythmic drum beat that opens the song...





One final note - the image of Cornell is from an early show in Stockholm. My friends in the Örebro band Cripple went there and handed him a t-shirt that he wore that night. What a guy!

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Grindcore parking lot

Posted: January 26, 2017 11:24:23 by Anders Jakobson

Believe it or not, but this parking lot is the birthplace of Nasum. Obviously it hasn't always been a parking lot. Once upon a time there was a run down house here that had a few rooms for bands to rehearse in. The house was called Bokcafét Räven (roughly "The Bookclub The Fox") that might or might not have had some illegal operations on their agenda. In the early 90's I started rehearsing with my crossover band F.R.M.T. in one of the rooms. It was small and probably smelly but it was my very first rehearsal room and we had a lot of fun playing there every week.

A while later we started to share the room with some youngsters. Two of them were called Rickard Alriksson and Dan Wall and as F.R.M.T. disbanded I started a new band with these two younger guys. That band was Necrony. That eventually led to the forming of Nasum, first as a side-project to Necrony, then as our main band.

Before we ultimately moved out of this room we shared it with a little outfit called Millencolin, but nobody probably remembers them anymore...

Today, soon close to 30 years since I first moved in there, it's a parking lot and it's been that for quite a while. I go by this place quite often and remember the crazy and creative times we spent in that room.


Anders and Rickard rehearsing some Necrony stuff inside Bokcafét Räven, 1992. Photo by Mieszko.

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Auction: Signed Shift LP from 2004

Posted: December 14, 2016 22:12:42 by ANDERS JAKOBSON

The story: "Shift" was released on CD and LP during the fall of 2004. Basically immediately after the release we embarked on our first headlining European tour. In the meantime Burning Heart promoted the album and got a deal with the huge Swedish metal/hardcore magazine Close-Up where a number of signed Nasum items were supposed to be part of a contest.

Burning Heart had promoted "Shift" by pressing a few white coveralls with the "Shift" artwork a some employees in gasmasks and coveralls (similar to the look in the "Wrath" video) gave away Nasum t-shirts at a Slayer show. We got these coveralls and gasmasks and signed them along with five copies of "Shift". Mieszko and I signed the stuff with gold ink at Burning Hearts offices while Urban and Jon signed them with silver ink at the last Swedish show for the "old" Nasum, at Fellini, Uppsala, December 4.

Well, the stuff were never submitted for the contest before Christmas and you all know what happened then. Since then, the stuff has been in the vault waiting for the right moment. Well, the right moment is sort of here now.

For the last nine years the Swedish national radio (Sveriges radio) and the P3 channel in particular have spent one week in December doing Musikhjälpen (The Music Aid) where three presenters are locked up in a glass box for 144 hours playing music all around the clock in benefit for a certain cause. The project is supported by the entire Swedish music industry (and many others) who donates stuff to auctions. It's quite a huge thing, really. Read this article if you want to know more and what the theme of the year is.

This year Musikhjälpen is broadcasting from Örebro, the birthplace of Nasum, and I decided it was time to give away one of the LP's for an official auction. The auction ends on Sunday and is held at Swedish auction site Tradera, but it's open for international buyers. All you need is a verified PayPal account.

• The auction
• Sign up for international buyers


One final note: As I wrote the signatures are in two different colors, and it's basically because we couldn't find a gold pen for the second part of the signing - we are not sorting the members in gold or silver status!

SUPPORT A GOOD CAUSE AND PLACE A BET ON THE LP! Thanks!

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Rehearsal videos from 2010

Posted: October 3, 2016 20:05:49 by ANDERS JAKOBSON

On this very day, October 3, six years ago, Nasum had the second band rehearsal for the 2012 Farewell Tour. At that time we were still in "feeling the songs" mode as it was about a year left until we finally decided to do the tour once we had had a few "feeling the songs" rehearsal with Keijo as well.

So, to put this into a timeline - in July 2010 I met the Stockholm guys for a nice Indian meal before a Converge show and put forth the idea of doing a (as in ONE) final show to end Nasum on our own terms. As the discussions started and everyone slowly started to like the idea, it developed into a tour since it would take as much time to rehearse for one show as a tour.

The Stockholm guys then started to rehearse a few songs every now and then and having a few beers or some Swedish fika while I was in Örebro not doing that... And in September we had the first band rehearsal totally in secret. As the second rehearsal got planned I decided that I had to tell my fellow Coldworker members what was going on, and my bass player Oskar asked if he could film the next Nasum rehearsal. So he did, and from the very noisy clips I've uploaded seven songs in six clips to YouTube, six years later. Here's a playlist:

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