News

Happy New Ear 2025!

Posted by Wudmaster on 01/01/25

Happy New Ear 2025! \,,/(^_^)\,,/

It is with great pleasure that we wish everybody a very Happy New Year in 2025! Let’s hope it’s a memorable one for all the right reasons.

The whole team would like to say a massive thank you to everybody who supported us in 2024. Without you, we couldn’t do this. We are very grateful and humbled by the support we have had from every corner of the earth. You lovely people continue to amaze us and make us smile.

In 2024 it would seem that we were heard the most in Los Angeles, London and Chicago. A very big Wud Records Happy New Ear 2025 to our listeners!

Despite great hopes and endeavor, we only managed four new releases in the whole of 2024. Those were Nádraží! by Flicker, and three songs by PokThe Sidewalk Song, Wear a Feather in Your Hat and Don’t Let It Pass You By. All four did well for us and many other songs were worked on by our team of amazing people. Perhaps we can release more than four in 2025? Hopefully.

Several more songs by our various artists are close to being released, and a whole album is waiting for just a little more input and tweakage. There is also the possibility of more file sharing and progress with Pok.

Also during 2024, we started to release the songs that make up Dark Company‘s A for Acronym album. We are releasing them slowly, for various reasons, and more will be forthcoming soon. They seem to have been received well on the whole, even though they are only work-in-progress versions and will not be fully released until they are complete.

Looking ahead, we are anticipating a few operational changes in the coming year, particularly with regard to streaming and social media. To stay tuned, you can join our mailing list by clicking here. Remember also to bookmark our News page and follow us on BlueSky, which seems to be where things are going right now.

Life tends to take all manner of twists and turns and events that have taken place recently have reduced our opportunities to make music. Time has become more and more scarce. In fact, the machines in the studios have remained mostly silent since the end of November, due to the lack of time. We hope some more time will be found from somewhere soon, but as there are only 168 hours in a week, that remains a conundrum.

Apart from wishing for a little more time for making music, what we would love to see in 2025 would be a lessening of the hate and polarisation that seems to be growing around the globe. As teenagers we had great hopes for the future, hopes that when the older generation shuffled along, the new blood would create levels of understanding, tolerance and comradeship not seen before on a global scale and the Age of Aquarius would begin.

That has not happened. While we can look back with joy upon events such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, those spring flowers of hope we once had have largely crumbled to dust, in a very similar way to that awful cold war monument itself. Everyone seems to be becoming more and more aggressive, more offended, more entrenched in their separatist views, and the whole world, politically at least, seems to be lurching sharply to the right. Did humanity learn nothing from the two world wars in the last century? Apparently not.

Let’s pray to the gods of rock n roll for an end to wars, more tolerance and understanding, the eradication of hunger and poverty, cures for diseases that affect so many in the poorest nations of the earth, better distribution of wealth and the rolling out of universal basic income for all, a reduction of misery and suffering for everyone, and a global humanity where we are all brothers and sisters together. Humanity has the power to do this – and chooses not to.

Perhaps you have seen a photo of the Earth taken from space? We only have one world and one species and being kind to each other would be a pleasant change.

What are you planning to achieve in 2025? Let us know on your socials. Whatever it may be, we wish you success beyond your wildest dreams and a very Happy New Ear 2025!

Clearly a woman of impeccable taste. Happy New Ear 2025!

Clearly a woman of impeccable taste.

Wud Records: November 2024 top ten published at SoundCloud

Posted by Wudmaster on 03/12/24

The November 2024 Chart

The top ten tracks for November 2024 from Wud Records have been published in a new compilation at SoundCloud.

However… there is a certain proviso to all of this. In much the same way as all social media platforms become ever more strangled under ever tighter controls, so too does the data from streaming services seem more comprised than in the past. However, we believe that, aside from the lateness of the stats coming from some of our distribution services, the quality of the data has improved recently.

We shall elaborate further with regard to each platform where our music is represented.

Bandcamp Is the Best Platform for Artists

If you are not yet a member of Bandcamp, we strongly suggest you sign up. Do it now! It’s free to join.

For any independent artist or label wanting to sell music or merch, there is no better place on the web to do so. If you don’t believe us, check out any search engine to see what other artists have to say. Bandcamp are simply Numero Uno. Finito!

Consider also this. There is always a danger that streaming services might remove music or artists from their platform (e.g. the recent dispute between Universal Music Group and TikTok), or the platform may even cease to exist altogether. Remember Napster, VitaminIC, MySpace, FriendsReunited?

When you subscribe to a music streaming platform, you don’t actually *own* any of the music. You’re just renting a bit of bandwidth on their distribution service, and most of the rent revenue you are paying goes to big corporations rather than the artists you love. It’s a terrible business model, both for artists and fans alike.

To avoid having the soundtracks to your life erased, we strongly recommend buying physical media and downloads so you can listen to your favourite songs whenever you wish. You know it makes sense!

Whilst several music platforms offer music downloads, they all charge a lot more and take a much bigger percentage of that higher price then Bandcamp does.

This means that you pay more, the band receives less, and a big greedy corporation takes a big old chunk of the money you paid to support the artist all for itself, just because it can. It’s a lose-lose situation, unless you happen to be a big greedy corporation who can rip people off however the fancy takes them.

Buying music from Bandcamp will cost you less and support the artist more. About 80% to 85% of what you spend at Bandcamp goes directly to the artist or their label, and is paid daily.

So it’s always a good idea to download from Bandcamp whenever possible, as they are the best site for supporting artists.

You can even pay more than the asking price for music on Bandcamp if you wish to add a little extra support for the artist.

There is also a Community feature at Bandcamp, and you can join ours by clicking here.

We believe that the stats we see from Bandcamp are perfectly accurate’. Yay!

HearThis

We are considering moving all of our SoundCloud music to HearThis because we rather like the platform, even though it is less than 5% of the size of SoundCloud. Their MD has promised us *personally* that his company will not ride roughshod over its userbase without any warning at all in attempts to cut costs, and that is rather appealing.

More news on this will follow in the future.

We’ve had plenty of issues and arguments with SoundCloud over many years, such as our disabled messaging for allegedly ‘spamming’ other artists there, who we dared try to inform about being included in a Musical Discoveries compilation. It would have probably been fine if we’d supported a bunch of major hiphop stars, as that is what SC loves best, instead of the multitude of curious and largely undiscovered wonders we try to support.

Much of our material at HearThis consists of either Archive tracks or oddities. Streams there are not particularly significant at present, although we do include them in the final analysis.

SoundCloud

A few months ago, SoundCloud decided, in their seemingly infinite wisdom, to downgrade their excellent ‘Stats’ for premium users (such as ourselves) to something that was completely and unbelievably dreadful that they call ‘Insights’, which are surprisingly uninsightful despite the profoundly misleading nomenclature.

Somebody at the company thought it would be a good idea to take a system that worked spectacularly well in real time, and replace it with another that is riddled with inconsistancies and errors. One can even observe the data changing right before one’s eyes! Even some of the most basic functions, such as choosing particular date ranges, no longer works properly. Which idiot thought this was a good idea? In our organisation such sabotage wouild mean instant dismissal. “Put your keys on the table and close the door behind you.”

Whilst we still do not fully trust the information we get from SoundCloud, there has been a significant improvement in data quality recently. Perhaps one day the new ‘Insights’ system will even be as good as their ‘Stats’ system was before they fiddled with it, but we shall have to wait and see.

Shitify

The data from the Wud Records Snotify for Artists pages covers everybody at that platform on our label. We also use the Snortify data from our distributors CD Baby and Soundrop.

Truth be told, we dislike spotify rather intensely right now. Not only are they tardy regarding supplying their stats, they have also implemented their most hideously egregious policy so far from 1st January 2024.

Spotify have chosen to take all of the revenue generated by any track having under 1000 streams and redistribute that revenue to the people who have the most streams, such as drake, kanye, taylor and so on.

Read about it here: https://blog.discmakers.com/2023/11/spotify-royalty-theft/

This isn’t just theft, it’s an absolute disgrace. Whoever thought this up should be ashamed of themselves and publicly rogered with a wire brush. Size four.

As such, we are considering boycotting spotify entirely. More news on this to come at the end of 2024.

Should our music achieve more than 1000 streams per track, which is highly likely over the course of a whole year, that means we are in effect stealing somebody else’s royalties when we are paid.

Just because a creative person achieves under 1000 streams for a song doesn’t mean we have the right to take their royalties. They probably worked just as hard as we did to make and release their music. They are no less deserving of their royalties than anybody else.

The whole thing is mucky and bad and makes us feel dirty for being paid not just our own royalties, but those of people who were unable to make the cut. This is just so wrong. It’s a proper mess.

Not only that, two of our songs have had “excessive” plays. This excess has resulted in punitive measures, which we are still protesting. It seems ridiculous, but that is what has happened.

One such song, Future Sadness Past from Dark Company‘s Signmaker album, has been removed from spotify completely. In order to punish us for having our song played “excessively”, the rest of the Signmaker album has also been removed from spotify.

The other missing track is Welcome to the Family by Flicker, from At Least 1000 Words. This track seems to have been hidden from the public.

Our distributors have so far declined to comment or reply to our emails regarding these issues. As such, we are considering abandoning spotify entirely at the end of the year. They are, after all, extremely shabby corporate scumbags, and have treated our label with contempt. Perhaps because we have spoken out against their egregious policies repeatedly.

Deezer, Tidal, YouTube, Amazon, Apple Music, etc.

We are now using data from our distributors for streams on platforms such as YouTube, Deezer and so on when reckoning the monthly charts. Unfortunately the data arrives several days late, so we only use it to extrapolate general trends.

The data for these services filters through to us via our distributors, although we are not very trusting of it. At best we can get a general feel of what is going on across all of the streaming services this way.

In Conclusion…

Previously the algorithm we used gave greatest weight to downloads and reposts, then likes and comments (active engagement) over plays (passive engagement).

If somebody actually pays to download something, they must have liked it! Our artists and ourselves are always very grateful to our supporters in this respect. It genuinely helps keep the fires burning and the wheels turning.

When somebody reposts a track, that gives it the opportunity to be heard by a potential new fan. This is always a tremendous help for creative souls. It enables that track to be discovered and enjoyed by the community of the person doing the sharing, which can generate new fans.

A ‘like’ is nice, but reposts actually helps the artist reach a bigger audience. You create the chance for that to happen. Recommending a song costs you nothing at all and can be a massive help for an independent artist. Why not do it now?

How Did We Calculate The November 2024 Chart?

The latest system is based upon some of the general tendencies and trends that have occured over the last calender month, as well as specifics where they are available. These have been amalgamated together to make the new Top Ten. Thank goodness for the Statistics module at university!

We have combined the stats from the general trends and tendencies from all of the services mentioned above. Each platform is represented and results from each are weighted and added together. Archive tracks and bonus tracks are ignored. The feedback from people who clearly didn’t listen to the music is now rendered insignificant.

Only you, the listener, can influence our December 2024 chart. So if there is a song you particularly like, keep playing it! Leave a comment, repost it, share it to your social media feeds! Download it from our Bandcamp! Add it to a playlist! It absolutely can make a difference.

Thanks For All Your Help!

Massive thanks go out to everybody who helped to support all of us during November 2024 by listening to, commenting on and reposting our bands’ tracks on SoundCloud, Bandcamp and elsewhere.

All the wonderful fans of our bands who supported us with downloads from Bandcamp are especially appreciated. You genuinely help us keep the fires burning and collectively we thank you for that most graciously. May you be blessed by the gods of rock n roll! :)

We would also like to say a special thank you to all the splendid people on Twitter and BlueSky who have been enjoying and reposting our tracks to their followers. All the support and positive feedback has been incredibly heartwarming for us all. It makes our endeavours here feel worthwhile.

Thank you very much to everyone who bought items from our merch store. Anyone who shares a photo of themselves with their Wud item on social media will receive an extra goody from ourselves once we have seen it and shared the photo on to our community as well.

If you buy something cool from the Flicker merch store, or the Dark Company merch store, we shall also send you an extra goody if you show us a photo of yourself (or friend, or environment) on social media with the item you purchased.

Last and by no means least, we would like to say thank you very much to all of the splendid people who have been buying us coffees at BuyMeACoffee. It’s very kind of you to help us out. All of these things absolutely contribute to ourselves being able to keep going, and spend more time making beautiful music for you to enjoy. It is truly appreciated very much indeed.

Who’s In The November 2024 Top Ten?

Dark Company

Congratulations to Dark Company! They’ve had a very good month across all of the platforms we use, ending with them achieving two songs in our newest monthly chart.

Straight in at number one is a new entry from Dark Company. This is a rather wonderful and catchy song called Decide to Ride, which may end up on the FUBAR CD as it is not especially rocky.

Decide to Ride is an earworm that you may find yourself singing after you’ve heard the chorus. The bouncy piano and subtley complex bass parts are an absolute delight. Josh plays a bit of what he calls “rhythm trumpet”, as well as wringing a few silvery notes through the mute at the end.

Down from number one to number two this month is Suns Set, the first song to be released from the band’s A for Acronym album. Suns Set is actually the very last song on the first of the three CDs that will make up the full album.

Although Suns Set is still little more than a demo, it is a beautiful song. The feel is classic rock, perhaps a little 80s in style, and like many of Pete’s lyrics, turned out to be rather prophetic.

Some of the lead guitar was recorded as a prompt for Pete to sing the vocal to, as he had forgotten the melody he originally created when we came to record his voice. We all rather liked it and it has been kept in some places.

A for Acronym is a triple album that cosists of three separate parts. SNAFU is a loosely ‘rock’ colllection of songs, VSF is a loosely ‘reggae’ collection of songs, and FUBAR is a collection of songs that don’t quite belong in either of the other two categories.

More A for Acronym songs will be released soon. There is also a new page among Dark Company’s pages at this website for the A for Acronym: SNAFU album, which you can visit by clicking here.

Flicker

Flicker had a good month across all platforms but only achieved one entry on the new Wud Records chart. Welcome to the Family is a re-entry at number three and is a wonderful latin-jazz-rock-fusion instrumental.

It builds from its acoustic guitar beginings to a heady climax of guitar feedback and noise. There is a lovely bass solo from Dave, who also plays all the keyboard parts with outstanding aplomb and sensitivity.

Welcome to the Family was inspired by The Godfather by Mario Puzo and a new chord from a Portuguese sea shanty. It is one of Flicker‘s most enduring and popular releases and recently passed a streaming milestone.

Wud

Wud (the band) enjoyed a splendid month in November 2024. If our charts stretched to 20 songs instead of ten, then all four tracks from Wud‘s 1985 Daylight Demo would have been included. As it was, there were only two that enjoyed top ten exposure.

The first to appear is a new entry at number four, Indian Summer. We were amazed that this song had never managed to enter the top ten before, despite its enduring popularity and unique charm.

It was probably helped into our newest chart by being rediscovered by an old fan, who wanted to know how to play it. George decided to make a “How to play…” video at YouTube.

As it happens, he actually played the song wrong! We believe he may make a corrective video soon. More news on this will follow subsequently.

Indian Summer is a beautiful song, with lyrics by Ken and guitar by George – and a strange fellow called Paul Kay, who nobody has heard of for about 40 years by now. Some of the chords are rather esoteric, especially the Bb-5 add 9, which is an absolute beauty. The song is about an asian lady that Ken used to know in Richmond before he moved to Devon, rather than warm weather in the autumn.

There is also a version of Indian Summer by Laughing Sun, which might have been the very last recording we ever made with Ken. This version features some compelling and charming lead guitar at the end from Pok.

A re-entry at number seven is That’s No Way to Pay a Bodyguard, which has been a tremendously popular song for many years. The guitar was composed in Kingskerswell at the house of a friend of George’s father, using an amazing full scale organ and a Fender Stratocaster, one rainy afternoon.

The lyrics for the song came later, upon returning to Exeter. Several lines of words concerning sheep and the merits of grass were subsequently discarded and the redundant vocal melody was used as a definitive guitar part.

That’s No Way to Pay a Bodyguard was one of Wud‘s signature songs. Amazingly, it has not hit the top ten of our charts since January 2020, but it has certainly been in and around the top twenty many times since then. For the first few months after joining the platform, it was our most streamed song on SoundCloud, after surprising us all by enjoying a huge spike of popularity in Norway.

Pok the Bard

We have started to release Pok‘s Anthology album’s tracks to SoundCloud (as mentioned in this News post) and doing so has made a big impact. Pok has claimed many of the top spots recently, and now one on our new chart.

Down from number two to number five, is Pok’s newest release, Don’t Let It Pass You By. This is such a wonderful cheerful song with a strong positive message. It can bring a smile to the lips of the glummest and most grumpulated miseryguts you know. It would probably help if they like rock music, especially of the hard, classic, blues, country or psychedelic varieties.

Don’t Let It Pass You By may start with a gentle introduction in A major, but then it really kicks in hard when the song proper begins and the key changes to E major. There is plenty of Ibanez Roadstar guitar goodness across the mix, as well as some organ and synth, not to mention the tastiest rhythm section on the planet right now in Maxx and Sven to invigorate your dancing shoes.

Don’t Let It Pass You By is a very historic song, going right back to the early days of Laughing Sun in 1985.

We are very pleased with the latest version of Don’t Let It Pass You By by Pok. There is so much to love about this we recommend you just listen to it yourself, which you can do by clicking here.

The Bastard Sons of Dennis

The Bastard Sons of Dennis enjoyed a good month on the chart in November 2024, claiming three of the ten possible positions. All three songs come from their fabulous Cosy Lube Turtle album of Blue Oyster Cult covers.

Since the studio upgrade early last year, we have been working on improving the sound quality of everything we released in the last few years. Fans of our gruesome twosome can expect some exciting news regarding this album fairly soon. We are waiting on just a single file before making a big announcement.

A progtastic full-band mini-album by the dynamic duo is also in the early stages of finalisation.

Sadly we tend to feel that further recordings of their many remaining Blue Oyster Cult covers seems an unlikely prospect. This is mostly due to “discommunication, disorganisation and general untogetherness”, as the legend who is Paul Bateman once said of them when they were in Rough Terrain.

Then Came the Last Days of May is a climber, up to six from number seven. This beautiful song tells a true story of how three university friends of Blue Öyster Cult’s guitarist, Donald ‘Buck Dharma’ Roeser, were brutally murdered in a drug deal that went horribly and tragically wrong. The version by our dynamic duo adds a twist to the versions heard on Blue Öyster Cult’s eponymous studio album and the live On Your Feet Or On Your Knees album from 1975.

Derek would sing “Now and then a duck” instead of “truck”, which caused fans of the duo to bring toy ducks with them along to live performances. Chuck’s solo is largely based on the live On Your Feet Or On Your Knees version, and his little whistle at the end (which didn’t always come out quite right in a live show) came from the character Tom Good in the uk tv sitcom The Good Life.

After one month just outside the top ten, this month‘s number eight song is a re-entry. Astronomy, is a profoundly beautiful and haunting creation. It was composed by the Bouchard brothers, Joe and Albert, and Sandy Pearlman. It is the final track of Blue Öyster Cult’s 1974 Secret Treaties album, and an absolute masterpiece of progressive rock composition.

The version of Astronomy by The Bastard Sons of Dennis is more produced than their live performances. They would often end a show with Astronomy, introducing it as a song that was famously covered by Metallica. “We wrote it, of course; ahem, cough…” Chuck would quip.

Before the Kiss a Redcap is a re-entry at number nine and the third Cosy Lube Turtle song on the new chart. It is the song that The Bastard Sons of Dennis performed live the most frequently. It would often pique the curiosity and lure unsuspecting bar patrons to where the live music was being performed so they could see for themselves what was going on. It was a very popular and fun live song, and quite often a set opener.

Before the Kiss a Redcap is the story of some events that took place at Conry’s Bar, on The Turnpike in New York. It is the fifth song on the eponymously titled Blue Öyster Cult album, released in 1972. Its lyrics were allegedly inspired by a real event witnessed by Sandy Pearlman, in which a biker offered him a barbiturate to be taken via a kiss.

The Subterraineans

The Subterraineans have a single entry in our chart this month. Short and Sweet is an amazing, beautiful, wonderful, epic classic rock song that falls from number three to number ten.

A massive favourite for many years, Short and Sweet used to profoundly affect people listening to it whenever The Subterraineans played this song live. Like many of Dean’s songs, it is a rather poignant prophetic prediction of Dean’s ultimate fate and how he felt about his struggles.

Short and Sweet is well over eight minutes long and feels much shorter somehow. Jerry’s bass sounds a bit uncertain at the start, but he always played it that way so he must have had some idea what he was doing!

Dean tragically committed suicide in 1994 by jumping from the Clifton suspension bridge in Bristol. He was just 29 years old. He received absolutely no professional help from the uk medical or social professions. With a little professional help he would surely still be here with us today. He was a unique and charming character and his passing was a great loss to the world.

As such, we have decided to donate all proceeds of the sale of this EP and its individual tracks, beyond the first euro, to The Samaritans. They do amazing and difficult work, trying to prevent more people jumping to their deaths from that notorious bridge.

* None of our other acts made it onto the November 2024 chart. *

Listening Options

If you would like to go to SoundCloud to hear the top ten songs from Wud Records in November 2024, as played, liked, commented upon and reposted by listeners, please click here.

If you prefer to listen right here at the Wud Records website, you will find that it is the new default music player. You will find it on all non band-specific pages at the site, including our Links collection and homepage.

The November 2024 chart has its very own dedicated page among the charts pages of this website. You can listen to the new compilation on its page by clicking here.

Each of the previous charts also has its own page in the charts section of this website. If you would like to see all our old charts, or for any previous month you are especially interested in, all of them can be accessed easily by clicking here.

Dark Company: A for Acronym pages at the Wud Records website

Posted by Wudmaster on 04/11/24

A for Acronym pages have started to appear in Dark Company‘s part of the Wud Records website. This coincides with the gradual release of songs for the A for Acronym triple album at SoundCloud.

Over the coming weeks, we shall create more A for Acronym pages as more of its songs are released. So far only two are available. These are the last two tracks from the first CD, which will be titled SNAFU.

Suns Set was released last month and has already proven to be popular at SoundCloud. The newest release is called Decide to Ride, which is another wonderful earworm from Dark Company.

Is Decide to Ride a rock song? We are not sure. Rock is a very loose term that covers a multitude of musical styles, so perhaps it is. All the same, for now at least, Decide to Ride is in the rock collection.

The first of the A for Acronym pages to be added to the website is for the SNAFU CD. This is the largely rock-themed album of songs.

Official lyrics and song information are already published for all of the SNAFU CD at Explicit Music. You can check them out by clicking here.

Subsequent A for Acronym pages will be for the VSF CD, which is a largely reggae-themed album, and the FUBAR CD, which is a collection of songs that do not fit entirely comfortably in either of the other two categories.

In our work with Dark Company, we may change the running order of the albums. Songs might be added or removed, because A for Acronym is very much a work-in-progress album.

The songs on the A for Acronym album are at present only alpha mixes. This means that there is a lot more work that will need to be done before they can be considered finished and sent to Bandcamp and our distributors for worldwide release.

We have included lyrics and song information to the A for Acronym pages at SoundCloud. We try to include these liner notes for everything we release.

If you would like to listen to the A for Acronym album as it stands right now over at SoundCloud, please click here.

To visit the new A for Acronym pages in Dark Company’s section of the Wud Records website, and listen to the wonderful work-in-progress new songs, please click here instead.

Dark Company founders - George (L) and Pete (R).

Dark Company founders – George (L) and Pete (R).

Wud Records: October 2024 top ten published at SoundCloud

Posted by Wudmaster on 02/11/24

The October 2024 Chart

The top ten tracks for October 2024 from Wud Records have been published in a new compilation at SoundCloud.

However… there is a certain proviso to all of this. In much the same way as all social media platforms become ever more strangled under ever tighter controls, so too is the data from streaming services more vague and less complete. The quality of data from some platforms has now become somewhat downgraded and we have been forced to calculate the chart this month using a different system. Fortunately it seems to work quite well and gives a good reflection of what has been popular. Thank goodness for the Statistics module at university!

The latest system is based upon general tendencies and trends that have occured over the last calender month as well as some of the specifics, where they are available. These have been amalgamated together to make the new Top Ten. We shall elaborate further with regard to each platform where our music is represented.

Bandcamp Is the Best Platform for Artists

We believe that the stats we see from Bandcamp are perfectly accurate, just as SoundCloud‘s used to be before they decided to downgrade everything to their new and not especially wonderful ‘Insights’.

If you are not yet a member of Bandcamp, we strongly suggest you sign up. Do it now! It’s free to join.

If you are an artist and want to sell your music and merch, there is no better place on the web to do so. If you don’t believe us, check out any search engine to see what other artists have to say. Bandcamp are simply Numero Uno. Finito.

Consider also this. There is always a danger that streaming services might remove music or artists from their platform (e.g. the recent dispute between Universal Music Group and TikTok), or the platform may even cease to exist altogether. When you subscribe, you don’t own any of the music! You’re just renting a bit of bandwidth on their distribution service, most of the revenue from which goes to big corporations rather than the artists you love. It’s a terrible business model for artists and fans alike.

To avoid having the soundtracks to your life erased, we strongly recommend buying physical media and downloads so you can listen to your favourite songs whenever you wish. You know it makes sense.

Whilst several music platforms offer music downloads, they all charge a lot more and take a much bigger percentage of that higher price then Bandcamp does.

This means that you pay more, the band receives less, and a big greedy corporation takes a big old chunk of the money you paid to support the artist all for itself, just because it can. It’s a lose-lose situation, unless you happen to be a big greedy corporation who can rip people off however the fancy takes them.

Buying music from Bandcamp will cost you less and support the artist more. About 80% to 85% of what you spend on Bandcamp goes directly to the artist or their label, and is paid daily. So it’s always a good idea to download from Bandcamp whenever possible as they are the best site for supporting artists. You can even pay more than the asking price for music on Bandcamp if you wish to add a little extra support for the artist.

HearThis

We are considering moving all of our SoundCloud music to HearThis because we rather like the platform, even though it is less than 5% of the size of SoundCloud. Their MD has promised us personally that his company will not ride roughshod over its userbase without any warning at all in attempts to cut costs, and that is rather appealing.

We’ve had plenty of issues and arguments with SoundCloud over many years, such as our disabled messaging for allegedly ‘spamming’ other artists there, who we dared try to inform about being included in a Musical Discoveries compilation. It would have probably been fine if we’d supported a bunch of major hiphop stars, as that is what SC loves best, instead of the multitude of curious and largely undiscovered wonders we try to support.

More news on this will follow in the future.

SoundCloud

In the last few months, SoundCloud have decided, in their seemingly infinite wisdom, to downgrade their excellent ‘Stats’ for premium users (such as ourselves) to something completely and unbelievably dreadful that they call ‘Insights’, which are surprisingly uninsightful despite the profoundly misleading nomenclature.

Somebody at the company thought it would be a good idea to take a system that worked spectacularly well in real time, and replace it with another that is riddled with inconsistancies and errors. One can even observe the data changing right before one’s eyes! Even some of the most basic functions, such as choosing particular date ranges, no longer works properly. Which idiot thought this was a good idea? In our organisation such sabotage wouild mean instant dismissal. “Put your keys on the table and close the door behind you.”

Whilst we do not fully trust the information we get from SoundCloud, we have to concede that there has been an improvement in data quality recently. Perhaps one day the new ‘Insights’ system will even be as good as their ‘Stats’ system was, but we shall have to wait and see.

Why on earth people have to do these things seems utterly bewildering, but there we are. It has been done, and there is nothing we can do, apart from write monthly emails of remonstrations and complaint, pointing out specific errors and inconsistencies within their system, only to receive an AI generated response from a bot that has failed to understand our email and might indeed be answering somebody else’s. Customer service was never really one of SoundCloud‘s strengths.

This is the world we live in today. All social media has been tightened and downgraded and it’s becoming ever harder to use any of the platforms, with ever diminishing rewards for anyone bothering to fritter away their precious time doing so.

Shitify

The data from the Wud Records Snotify for Artists pages covers everybody at that platform on our label. We also use the Snortify data from our distributors CD Baby and Soundrop.

Truth be told, we dislike spotify rather intensely right now. Not only are they tardy regarding supplying their stats, they have also implemented their most hideously egregious policy so far from 1st January 2024.

Spotify have chosen to take all of the revenue generated by any track having under 1000 streams and redistribute that revenue to the people who have the most streams, such as drake, kanye, taylor and so on.

Read about it here: https://blog.discmakers.com/2023/11/spotify-royalty-theft/

This isn’t just theft, it’s an absolute disgrace. Whoever thought this up should be ashamed of themselves and publicly rogered with a wire brush. Size four.

As such, we are considering boycotting spotify entirely. More news on this to come at the end of 2024.

Should our music achieve more than 1000 streams per track, which is highly likely over the course of a whole year, that means we are in effect stealing somebody else’s royalties when we are paid.

Just because a creative person achieves under 1000 streams for a song doesn’t mean we have the right to take their royalties. They probably worked just as hard as we did to make and release their music. They are no less deserving of their royalties than anybody else.

The whole thing is mucky and bad and makes us feel dirty for being paid not just our own royalties, but those of people who were unable to make the cut. This is just so wrong. It’s a proper mess.

Deezer, Tidal, YouTube, Amazon, Apple Music, etc.

We are now using data from our distributors for streams on platforms such as YouTube, Deezer and so on when reckoning the monthly charts. Unfortunately the data arrives several days late, so we only use it to extrapolate general trends.

The data for these services filters through to us via our distributors, although we are not very trusting of it. At best we can get a general feel of what is going on across all of the streaming services this way.

In Conclusion…

Previously the algorithm we used gave greatest weight to downloads and reposts, then likes and comments (active engagement) over plays (passive engagement).

If somebody actually pays to download something, they must have liked it! Our artists and ourselves are always very grateful to our supporters in this respect. It genuinely helps keep the fires burning and the wheels turning.

When somebody reposts a track, that gives it the opportunity to be heard by a potential new fan. This is always a tremendous help for creative souls. It enables that track to be discovered and enjoyed by the community of the person doing the sharing, which can generate new fans.

A ‘like’ is nice, but reposts actually helps the artist reach a bigger audience. You create the chance for that to happen. Recommending a song costs you nothing at all and can be a massive help for an independent artist. Why not do it now?

How Did We Calculate The October 2024 Chart?

We have combined the stats from the general trends and tendencies from all of the services mentioned above. Each platform is represented and results from each are weighted and added together. Archive tracks and bonus tracks are ignored. The feedback from people who clearly didn’t listen to the music is now rendered insignificant.

Only you, the listener, can influence our November 2024 chart. So if there is a song you particularly like, keep playing it! Leave a comment, repost it, share it to your social media feeds! Download it from our Bandcamp! Add it to a playlist! It absolutely can make a difference.

Thanks For All Your Help!

Massive thanks go out to everybody who helped to support all of us during October 2024 by listening to, commenting on and reposting our bands’ tracks on SoundCloud, Bandcamp and elsewhere.

All the wonderful fans of our bands who supported us with downloads from Bandcamp are especially appreciated. You genuinely help us keep the fires burning and collectively we thank you for that most graciously. May you be blessed by the gods of rock n roll! :)

We would also like to say a special thank you to all the splendid people on Twitter and BlueSky who have been enjoying and reposting our tracks to their followers. All the support and positive feedback has been incredibly heartwarming for us all. It makes our endeavours here feel worthwhile.

Thank you very much to everyone who bought items from our merch store. Anyone who shares a photo of themselves with their Wud item on social media will receive an extra goody from ourselves once we have seen it and shared the photo on to our community as well.

If you buy something cool from the Flicker merch store, or the Dark Company merch store, we shall also send you an extra goody if you show us a photo of yourself (or friend, or environment) on social media with the item you purchased.

Last and by no means least, we would like to say thank you very much to all of the splendid people who have been buying us coffees at BuyMeACoffee. It’s very kind of you to help us out. All of these things absolutely contribute to ourselves being able to keep going, and spend more time making beautiful music for you to enjoy. It is truly appreciated very much indeed.

Who’s In The October 2024 Top Ten?

Dark Company

Congratulations to Dark Company! They’ve had a very good month across all of the platforms we use, ending with them achieving two songs in our newest monthly chart.

Straight in at number one this month is a brand new entry called Suns Set, the first song to be released from the band’s A for Acronym album. Suns Set is actually the very last song on the first of the three CDs that will make up the full album.

Although Suns Set is still little more than a demo, it is a beautiful song. The feel is classic rock, perhaps a little 80s in style, and like many of Pete’s lyrics, turned out to be rather prophetic. Some of the lead guitar was a prompt for Pete to sing the vocal to, as he had forgotten the melody he originally created when we came to record his voice.

A for Acronym is a triple album that cosists of three separate parts. SNAFU is a loosely ‘rock’ colllection of songs, VSF is a loosely ‘reggae’ collection of songs, and FUBAR is a collection of songs that don’t quite belong in either of the other two categories. More A for Acronym songs will be released soon, along with a new page among Dark Company’s pages at this website.

Dark Company‘s other song on the new chart is re-entry at number nine, and making its first appearance since January 2020. Tip the Rest is a hard rock song oozing classic killer riffs and swagger. It is the first song on Dark Company‘s Bad Habits album.

Tip the Rest has nothing to do with snooker coaching. Instead it is about cutting loose from one’s chains and escaping the bonds that tie somebody to people with restrictive limitations. It is a glorious song of liberation and freedom in the key of A major.

Pok the Bard

We have started to release his Anthology album’s tracks to SoundCloud (as mentioned in this News post) and doing so has made a big impact. Pok has claimed three of the top spots on our new chart.

Down from number one to number two, after two months topping our charts, is Pok’s newest release, Don’t Let It Pass You By. This is such a wonderful cheerful song with a strong positive message. It can bring a smile to the lips of the glummest and most grumpulated miseryguts you know. It would probably help if they like rock music, especially of the hard, classic, blues, country or psychedelic varieties.

Don’t Let It Pass You By may start with a gentle introduction in A major, but then it really kicks in hard when the song proper begins and the key changes to E major. There is plenty of Ibanez Roadstar guitar goodness across the mix, as well as some organ and synth, not to mention the tastiest rhythm section on the planet right now in Maxx and Sven to invigorate your dancing shoes.

Don’t Let It Pass You By is a very historic song, going right back to the early days of Laughing Sun in 1985.

We are very pleased with the latest version of Don’t Let It Pass You By by Pok. There is so much to love about this we recommend you just listen to it yourself, which you can do by clicking here.

Climbing from number seven last month to number four is The Lecher. This was recently remixed and remastered and sounds a whole lot better than it did before.

The Lecher is in the key of E major and shuffles along at a suitably creepy 88 BPM with a 12/8 feel. The song was composed by Pok, who created the riff, and there were likely others involved in its creation as well, such as George, Roy Brimblecombe and Dick White during the days of Achilles Heel, when they were all pupils at The King’s Grammar School, Ottery St Mary, in 1982.

The Lecher was actually inspired by one or more of the teachers at the aforementioned school, which had rather an abundance of beautiful young maidens. Exactly which teacher (-s) would have been the main inspiration for The Lecher is now lost to the mists of time.

The Lecher is a deliciously expressive piece of music that captures, with considerable style, the essence of a lecherous schoolmaster going about his daily business.

Essentially the song is a truly awesome riff and lots of jamming, and the result is just fabulous. It was the first finished and released song for Pok’s Anthology album.

Enjoying an eighth consecutive month on our charts and rising from number nine to this month‘s number five is Wear a Feather in Your Hat by Pok. This awesome song tells a most extraordinary tale about a group of travellers in the USA in the 19th Century and a man with purple skin. This really truly is a musical delight and the tale has the most peculiar twist at the end.

Pok plays three guitar parts on his beautiful Gretsch acoustic – one left, one right and a lead part. The lead part was recorded all in one take, and it was the first take. The man’s skills are often under-rated. Maxx and Sven do a fabulous job with the bass and percussives, as always.

Wear a Feather in Your Hat first appears on the Indeed recording by Laughing Sun. The lyrics even say “You can be a man of Wud or you can go insane!” – which seems a relatively easy choice to make.

We probably ought to add that back in 1985, when Pok wrote Wear a Feather in Your Hat and used the word ‘man’, it was widely understood to mean ‘woman’, and indeed ‘everyone’ as well, in an all-encompassing and friendly way, rather than today’s necessity for lengthy politically correct pronoun conjugations and configuarations.

The Subterraineans

It’s a welcome return to our chart this month for The Subterraineans. Short and Sweet is an amazing, beautiful, wonderful, epic classic rock song. It re-enters for the first time since January 2024 at number three.

A massive favourite for many years, Short and Sweet used to profoundly affect people listening to it whenever The Subterraineans played this song live. Like many of Dean’s songs, it is a rather poignant prophetic prediction of Dean’s ultimate fate and how he felt about his struggles.

Short and Sweet is well over eight minutes long and feels much shorter somehow. Jerry’s bass sounds a bit uncertain at the start, but he always played it that way so he must have had some idea what he was doing!

Dean tragically committed suicide in 1994 by jumping from the Clifton suspension bridge in Bristol. He was just 29 years old. He received absolutely no professional help from the uk medical or social professions. With a little professional help he would surely still be here with us today. He was a unique and charming character and his passing was a great loss to the world.

As such, we have decided to donate all proceeds of the sale of this EP and its individual tracks, beyond the first euro, to The Samaritans. They do amazing and difficult work, trying to prevent more people jumping to their deaths from that notorious bridge.

Alchemeon

Alchemeon return to the charts after a short sabbatical. Alchemeon were an awesome foursome powered by the phenomenal Iggy on drums, Jim Iz on his copious racks of keys and harmony vocals, Pok on guitar and voice and George on bass. They were an amazing quartet whose progressive/psychedelic/space/cosmic rock sound was something truly special. Sadly the band’s existence was far too short lived, due mainly to Jim’s poor health and Pok’s desire to follow the way of the bard rather than the way of the band member.

September 2021’s chart topper, Alchemeon‘s Castrol GTX a-Go-Go, is a re-entry at this month‘s number six. Besides being a work of insane genius, there is a tremendous backstory behind the composition of Castrol GTX a-Go-Go. You can read it at any of the song’s own web pages, such as on Bandcamp, SoundCloud, and Explicit Music.

The Bastard Sons of Dennis

The Bastard Sons of Dennis enjoyed a good month on the chart in October 2024, claiming three of the ten possible positions. Two songs come from their fabulous Cosy Lube Turtle album of Blue Oyster Cult covers, the other coming from their equally fabulous Cherry Smoke Empire album of original songs.

Since the studio upgrade early last year, we have been working on improving the sound quality of everything we released in the last few years. Fans of our gruesome twosome can expect some exciting news regarding this album fairly soon. We are waiting on just a single file before making a big announcement.

A progtastic full-band mini-album by the dynamic duo is also in the early stages of finalisation.

Sadly we tend to feel that further recordings of their many remaining Blue Oyster Cult covers seems an unlikely prospect. This is mostly due to “discommunication, disorganisation and general untogetherness”, as the legend who is Paul Bateman once said of them when they were in Rough Terrain.

Then Came the Last Days of May is a re-entry at number seven. This beautiful song tells a true story of how three university friends of Blue Öyster Cult’s guitarist, Donald ‘Buck Dharma’ Roeser, were brutally murdered in a drug deal that went horribly and tragically wrong. The version by our dynamic duo adds a twist to the versions heard on Blue Öyster Cult’s eponymous studio album and the live On Your Feet Or On Your Knees album from 1975.

Derek would sing “Now and then a duck” instead of “truck”, which caused fans of the duo to bring toy ducks with them along to live performances. Chuck’s solo is largely based on the live On Your Feet Or On Your Knees version, and his little whistle at the end (which didn’t always come out quite right in a live show) came from the character Tom Good in the uk tv sitcom The Good Life.

Returning to our charts at number eight is a re-entry for The Bastard Sons of Dennis. Seven Screaming Diz-Busters is a highly esoteric and extraordinary piece of progressive rock composition, beautifully interpreted by The Bastard Sons of Dennis. It is a song for which they were well known.

Originally this song was released by Blue Öyster Cult on their 1973 Tyranny and Mutation album. It was big crowd favourite at a live performances by The Bastard Sons of Dennis and you can enjoy watching a video of them playing it live by clicking here.

There is often the surprise of a rather odd song unexpectedly making it onto our charts and this month is no exception. A brand new entry at number ten is part seven of the glorious epic The Furniture/Los Muebles, The Bureau.

The Furniture / Los Muebles is an extraordinary tale, which threads its way through the entirety of the duo’s Cherry Smoke Empire album. It tells the story of a dysfunctional family of fisherfolk from the Asturias region of northern Spain, who lost and then found some of their furniture following a flood.

The Furniture / Los Muebles was released as a single in January 2017. At twelve minutes and seven seconds in length, most record labels would consider it too long to be a single. It didn’t stop us though! For the Cherry Smoke Empire album, the song was split into nine separate parts and a different song can be heard between each part.

* None of our other acts made it onto the October 2024 chart. *

Listening Options

If you would like to go to SoundCloud to hear the top ten songs from Wud Records in October 2024, as played, liked, commented upon and reposted by listeners, please click here.

If you prefer to listen right here at the Wud Records website, you will find that it is the new default music player. You will find it on all non band-specific pages at the site, including our Links collection and homepage.

The October 2024 chart has its very own dedicated page among the charts pages of this website. You can listen to the new compilation on its page by clicking here.

Each of the previous charts also has its own page in the charts section of this website. If you would like to see all our old charts, or for any previous month you are especially interested in, all of them can be accessed easily by clicking here.

Wud Records: Autumn 2024 Musical Discoveries

Posted by Wudmaster on 01/11/24

Autumn 2024 Musical Discoveries

A brand new playlist of all the favourite musical discoveries of the Wud Records team has been published at SoundCloud. All of the artists on it are amazing independent or unsigned artists who are making great music that simply aches to be heard.

These artists are not associated directly with Wud Records in any way. We simply accumulated songs that we all liked during Autumn 2024 into one agreed playlist and published it on the first day of the new month.

Tracks have been arranged according to the number of plays at the time of publishing, starting with the fewest. Tracks that are early in playlists tend to receive more plays than later tracks. We are inclined to believe that the music which has had the fewest streams needs the best chance of exposure.

If you find some new favourites on there, why not shout about them on your social media channels? It costs you nothing to do so. The artists responsible for creating the music will welcome such word-of-mouth exposure. Many of your friends and followers would enjoy hearing the music too. At the very least… you might end up making an independent musician’s day.

Sharing Is Very, Very Important !!

Sharing is a massive help for independent artists. They don’t have big corporations and mainstream media saturating every channel with their product. Every independent share counts.

Giving something a ‘like’ is nice, but sharing exposes the artist to your followers. This means that anybody in your community can see and click on what you shared. They can potentially enjoy it as well. It enables somebody new to discover the artist and become their newest fan. You create the chance for that to happen.

Are you a musician whose SoundCloud track we liked, shared or tweeted during the last three months or so? If you are, there is a possibility that one of your tracks that we shared might be on this new playlist.

Can you complete the challenge of listening to every track on a musical discoveries compilation? If you manage it, tell us! Tell the music makers involved. Tell the world on social media how you feel about what you heard. The people concerned would love to know your thoughts.

We appreciate the fact that in 2024 not many have the time, patience or attention span to listen to even one track all the way through, let alone a whole playlist. Anybody who listens to even half of a musical discoveries compilation is somebody of exceptional stamina.

As such, we occasionally tend to big up on Twitter the people who manage to listen to a whole playlist. If you want a bit of free promotion from Wud Records on Twitter, you know what to do.

Towards the bottom of the page is a list of the artists and tracks in the compilation. The artist name is clickable and links to an external website where you can find out, hear and see more of the artist in question. Sometimes finding these links can take quite a bit of research as many artists are not especially skilled at linking all their pages together.

A disclaimer! Clearly we cannot take responsibility for any of the content or functionality of these pages. If you find that something isn’t working as it should, please let us know what’s up and we’ll try to find a remedy.

The links we use are for future-proofing. If the artist decides to leave SoundCloud or removes their track from that platform, you might still be able to enjoy hearing them elsewhere with a cunning click of the mouse.

If you are the artist and would prefer us to use a different link to the one we added, or if we got something a bit wrong, please send an email to info @ wudrecords . co . uk (without the spaces) so we can fix it for you.

Generally we try to use the artist’s own site where possible. This helps drive a little traffic to the artist’s website, which might not receive many visits compared to e.g. facebook or spotify. We also tend to link to something a bit more future-proof than “Listen to our latest single!” as we hope these playlists will be around for a long time to come.

We only linked to SoundCloud as a last resort when we were unable to find anything else, as users can already click the track and go to the artist’s SoundCloud page for themselves.

Free Promo For Great Music

We hope that a lot more people will find and listen to the wonderful songs on this new playlist of musical discoveries. Each and every track has something that we felt was special or interesting in some way. In many cases it was a tough job to choose just one track from an artist.

The playlist is very eclectic, so there is probably something on there to suit every taste. If the track you are listening to isn’t quite doing it for you, skip to the next one and perhaps that will please your ears more. Sometimes similar tracks end up next to each other, and sometimes extremely different tracks do, so we recommend you just try it for yourself.

In addition to the latest compilation being our pinned tweet on Twitter, every week on Twitter we used to boost a previous Musical Discoveries playlist and a featured track from that playlist. Occasionally we still do, although that platform is a poor shadow of what it once was. The featured track is chosen by the Wud Records team and is one which is a real favourite amongst us.

All of the featured tracks can be found on a separate page at our website by clicking here, or on SoundCloud by clicking here.

On Twitter we encourage people to vote for the next featured track. These votes are added to the votes cast by our team. All the featured tracks form an additional compilation, which we also used to tweet frequently and occasionally still do.

We used to tweet just about every day. Since late 2021 things have become increasingly busy, meaning we are not able to spend as much time on social media as we used to. Full tweeting days are now something of a rarity. When they happen, we try to do a clump of full days together over a period of a fortnight, if possible.

Now that Twitter has been largely destroyed by its newest owner, it is difficult to foresee a time that we will be tweeting much at all any more. Perhaps someday somebody will buy the platform from him and repair all the damage he has done. Until then, it’s become even more delinquent than farcebeak.

Wud Records has set up camp at BlueSky and if you would like to follow us there, we would be delighted to have you on board. Click here to find us!

If you need a code to join, we have few spare. Send us an email to info @ wudrecords .co.uk and we’ll send you one.

How We Work It

If you would like the opportunity to be included in a future compilation, first you need to follow us on SoundCloud so we can follow you back. You can even enjoy hearing some of the music by our fabulous bands whilst you’re there. :)

We follow everyone back who follows us on SoundCloud, providing you have original music and you are not some kind of phony pointless scamming account.

There are many scammers who can allegedly make it seem that people have been listening to your music. The ‘plays’ come from bots and click farms. Nobody will engage with the music or even hear it. It is very easy to spot a track that has been boosted in this way, so just don’t do it. Spend your hard-earned musical coins on something useful!

We generally listen to at least seven songs, starting with the spotlighted tracks if there are any. After that we go to the most recent by clicking on your ‘tracks’. This way we can hear both the things you want us to hear the most (your spotlighted tracks), and then whatever you have been releasing to SoundCloud most recently. This enables us to get a rough feel of what you are all about and what you are doing. We also read your bio.

Our people listen to everyone we follow at SoundCloud on a first-in-first-out basis. It typically takes a few weeks for us to reach the newest additions. We always have a massive amount of music to listen to, and we use a quorum of a minimum three listeners, so please be patient and eventually you will be heard.

Autumn 2024 begins a ninth year of Wud Records Musical Discoveries compilations. That means 97 compilations of amazing independent music you almost certainly never heard before! Why not put one on in the background whilst you’re busy pottering around the house or doing what you are doing? Something is bound to leap out at you.

Listen and Enjoy

If you would like to listen to the new playlist of Autumn 2024 Musical Discoveries over at SoundCloud, please click here.

To enjoy the new playlist of great music here at the Wud Records website, please click here.

If you would like easy access to all of the previous musical discoveries playlists, please click here and bookmark the page.

Remember that we publish a new playlist absolutely full of largely undiscovered musical treasures every three months and who knows – one might even include you!

Important!

Episode #96 was the last monthly Musical Discoveries compilation for the time being.

We have moved to a quarterly release schedule due to the strangling of social media (more here: https://www.wudrecords.co.uk/news/wud-records-social-media-is-dead/) and a general waning interest in music.

For further information, please read this: https://www.wudrecords.co.uk/news/wud-records-future-of-musical-discoveries/

Dark Company: first public A for Acronym releases

Posted by Wudmaster on 19/10/24

The first public A for Acronym releases will start appearing at SoundCloud in due course. We have discussed the release situation with Dark Company on a number of occasions and finally, in the early part of the summer, we agreed that it was time to start letting these songs out.

A for Acronym is a triple-CD length album of songs by Dark Company, organised into three separate collections. The first public A for Acronym releases will come from the first collection, which are ‘rock’ themed and bear the title SNAFU.

The second collection will have a loosely ‘reggae’ theme, and this will be called VSF. The third collection will be the songs that don’t quite fit in either the rock or reggae categories and shall be titled FUBAR.

The first public A for Acronym release, Suns Set, is actually the last song on the first collection. It is therefore, broadly speaking, a rock song. It is still only an alpha mix and needs a lot more work doing to it before it can be considered a finished product for general release.

However, we tend to feel that it is worth starting to allow these songs out into the public domain as there has been considerable progress recently in our studios. The end is in sight at last for some of our projects.

Very observant Dark Company fans may have already noticed that the lyrics and fun facts for Dark Company’s A for Acronym album are already published at the Explicit Music website. For further teasers, we recommend you visit those pages. Click here to open a new tab.

Wud Records have kept all of these new Dark Company songs largely under wraps. This is due to the large amount of work-in-progress Dark Company material already out in the public domain. This includes Dark Company’s pages here at the Wud Records webiste as well as on sites such as SoundCloud and HearThis.

New web pages will be appearing soon at the Wud Records website for the A for Acronym album. Please be sure to follow our News service and Wud Records social media channels for further announcements.

You can also join the Wud Records mailing list by clicking here.

As these are still early days for the album, changes are likely to occur. Some of the songs may not make the final cut. New ones may appear. The final running order, and which songs end up on which albums, is likely to be modified over time.

Like all of Dark Company’s albums, the order in which the songs are arranged seem to form a narrative. Exactly what those narritives are can be difficult to define, but there is certainly one there. Dark Company as a band are exponents extraordinaire of the semi-concept album.

If you would like to listen to Suns Set by Dark Company, please click here.

To listen to the entire A for Acronym album as it stands right now, please click here. Should you be reading this news post not long after its publishing date, there may only be the one track in the public domain. More tracks will be added over time. There may be as many as 18.

For all things Dark Company, please click here for their LinkTree.

George (left) and Pete (right) - the masterminds behind Dark Company in a first public photoshoot for some years in 2008.

George (left) and Pete (right) – the masterminds behind Dark Company in a first public photoshoot for some years in 2008.