News

Welcome to 2020! And what a year 2019 has been. Indeed, what a decade it’s been. Let’s take a look back at 2019 and the last ten years as a whole, then look ahead to what’s coming up in the future.

2019 has been a disappointing year in that we have not achieved anywhere near as much as we hoped. Very little new music was released. Not much progress was made in terms of the various unfinished recordings languishing in the machinery. We have been beset by technical issues and been horribly busy with work, families and other distractions that make music creation and development very difficult. The miles, the sea and the time apart has made communication with some of our people more difficult than it was before. However, in spite of all of this, we are just as hopeful as ever that 2020 will be a more productive year than 2019 was.

The last ten years have seen so many changes. We could never have predicted back in January 2010 how things would be today. Births, marriages, deaths, emigration and the end of many things as we knew them. Of course, when something ends, something new starts. Wud Records is starting to send out green shoots of recovery and plant new roots in a new land, far far from exeter where we were based for so long.

This year we are hopeful of a number of things. The finishing of the Cosy Lube Turtle album by The Bastard Sons of Dennis. The finishing of some more tracks by Pok and Flicker. The necessary repairs taking place to allow some Dark Company songs to be finished. And of course, more music added to our Archives. We are also hoping to increase the exposure of our artists through the internet and new territories there. We are also hopeful that the independent music revolution which we support though Twitter will continue to gain strength in the face of mainstream corporate dumbing down, blandness and brainwashing.

So once again, welcome to 2020 and may it be a splendid year and indeed a splendid decade for all our friends and fans across the world.

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 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 November 2019 into one agreed playlist and published it at the end of the 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, and we feel that the ones with fewer plays need the best chance of exposure.

If you find some new favourites on there, why not shout about them on social media as well? We are sure the artistes responsible for creating the music will welcome such word-of-mouth exposure and your friends and followers would probably love to enjoy hearing the music too. At the very least you might end up making an independent musician’s day.

Can you complete the challenge of listening to every track?! If you manage it, tell us, tell some of the music makers involved, and tell the world on social media how you feel about what you heard. Everyone concerned would love to hear your thoughts.

If you are one of the bands from which we recently liked, shared or tweeted a track at SoundCloud, there is a chance that one of your tracks might be on this new playlist.

Towards the bottom of the page is a list of featured artists and tracks. 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.

If you are the artist and would prefer us to use a different link to the one we added, please send an email to info@wudrecords.co.uk so we can fix it for you. Generally we try to use the artist’s own site where possible. 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.

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 boost a previous Musical Discoveries playlist and a featured track from that playlist. The featured track is chosen by the Wud Records team and is one which is a real favourite amongst us. All the featured tracks form an additional compilation which we also tweet daily.

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

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 listen to everyone we follow at SoundCloud on a first-in-first-out basis. It may take a few weeks for us to reach the newest additions. We always have a massive amount of music to listen to, so please be patient and eventually you will be heard.

If you would like to listen to this special new playlist of November 2019 Musical Discoveries over at SoundCloud, please click here.

To enjoy this 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 month!

The top ten SoundCloud tracks for November 2019 from Wud Records have been published in a new playlist. Tracks have been arranged from one to ten according to their popularity and take into account plays, comments, likes and reposts. The algorithm we use gives greatest weight to reposts, then likes and comments over plays.

Tracks published at Musicoin and Bandcamp have been omitted from the SoundCloud statistics. This is because we feel these results require separate treatment. Archive tracks and bonus tracks are also ignored.

Only you, the listener, can influence our December 2019 playlist. So if there is a track you particularly like, keep playing it!

Massive thanks go out to everybody who helped to support all of us during November 2019 by listening, commenting and reposting our bands’ tracks on SoundCloud, as well as other platforms.

A special mention needs to go to Atom Collector Records. Their service continues to help us achieve consistently and significantly better activity. If you have tracks on SoundCloud, Bandcamp, YouTube, Musicoin, Spotify, ReverbNation, dSound, dTube or Peertracks, you too could see considerable growth in activity. It’s even free to join. Just click here to go to their site.

We would also like to say a special thank you to all the splendid people on Twitter 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 all our endeavours here seem worthwhile.

In the last two months our tweets have been seen by just under three quarters of a million people. The result of this increased exposure has made a huge boost to activity across our sites. This has also affected the many independent musicians we try to help a little. You too can follow us on Twitter if you don’t already – simply click here and then on ‘Follow’. :)

Congratulations to The Bastard Sons of Dennis, who occupied the top two chart positions in November 2019. The acoustic funk progrock masterpiece Good Times made a return to the top spot and their song The Furniture (part 1: overture) from their truly extraordinary creation The Furniture/Los Muebles dropped down to two.

The remaining eight places were taken by Flicker with three tracks, Alchemeon with two tracks, and The Ug Brothers, Alien Heat and Dark Company with one track each. No other acts made it into our chart this month.

If you would like to go to SoundCloud to hear the top ten songs from Wud Records in November 2019, as played, liked, commented upon and reposted by listeners, please click here.

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

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 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 October 2019 into one agreed playlist and published it at the end of the 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, and we feel that the ones with fewer plays need the best chance of exposure.

If you find some new favourites on there, why not shout about them on social media as well? We are sure the artistes responsible for creating the music will welcome such word-of-mouth exposure and your friends and followers would probably love to enjoy hearing the music too. At the very least you might end up making an independent musician’s day.

Can you complete the challenge of listening to every track?! If you manage it, tell us, tell some of the music makers involved, and tell the world on social media how you feel about what you heard. Everyone concerned would love to hear your thoughts.

If you are one of the bands from which we recently liked, shared or tweeted a track at SoundCloud, there is a chance that one of your tracks might be on this new playlist.

Towards the bottom of the page is a list of featured artists and tracks. 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.

If you are the artist and would prefer us to use a different link to the one we added, please send an email to info@wudrecords.co.uk so we can fix it for you. Generally we try to use the artist’s own site where possible. 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.

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 boost a previous Musical Discoveries playlist and a featured track from that playlist. The featured track is chosen by the Wud Records team and is one which is a real favourite amongst us. All the featured tracks form an additional compilation which we also tweet daily.

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

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 listen to everyone we follow at SoundCloud on a first-in-first-out basis. It may take a few weeks for us to reach the newest additions. We always have a massive amount of music to listen to, so please be patient and eventually you will be heard.

If you would like to listen to this special new playlist of October 2019 Musical Discoveries over at SoundCloud, please click here.

To enjoy this 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 month!

The top ten SoundCloud tracks for October 2019 from Wud Records have been published in a new playlist. Tracks have been arranged from one to ten according to their popularity and take into account plays, comments, likes and reposts. The algorithm we use gives greatest weight to reposts, then likes and comments over plays.

Tracks published at Musicoin and Bandcamp have been omitted from the SoundCloud statistics. This is because we feel these results require separate treatment. Archive tracks and bonus tracks are also ignored.

Only you, the listener, can influence our November 2019 playlist. So if there is a track you particularly like, keep playing it!

Massive thanks go out to everybody who helped to support all of us during October 2019 by listening, commenting and reposting our bands’ tracks on SoundCloud, as well as other platforms.

A special mention needs to go to Atom Collector Records. Their service continues to help us achieve consistently and significantly better activity. If you have tracks on SoundCloud, Bandcamp, YouTube, Musicoin, Spotify, ReverbNation, dSound, dTube or Peertracks, you too could see considerable growth in activity. It’s even free to join. Just click here to go to their site.

We would also like to say a special thank you to all the splendid people on Twitter 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 all our endeavours here seem worthwhile.

In the last two months our tweets have been seen by just under three quarters of a million people. The result of this increased exposure has made a huge boost to activity across our sites. This has also affected the many independent musicians we try to help a little. You too can follow us on Twitter if you don’t already – simply click here and then on ‘Follow’. :)

Congratulations to The Bastard Sons of Dennis, whose song The Furniture (part 1: overture) from their truly extraordinary creation The Furniture/Los Muebles remains at the top of our chart.

Congratulations also go to Flicker, who were highly popular again in October. Their dominance of our latest chart meant they took six of the remaining nine places, with five of the tracks coming from their 2002 album At Least 1000 Words.

The remaining three places were taken by Dark Company, with the ever-popular Medicines from Rage in Heaven returning at number two, and tracks from their work-in-progress albums Benign Inquisition and Mind Dance. No other acts made it into our chart this month.

If you would like to go to SoundCloud to hear the top ten songs from Wud Records in October 2019, as played, liked, commented upon and reposted by listeners, please click here.

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

Dark Company have announced an exclusive fan offer! It is something very special for all fans who have supported the band over the years.

This exclusive fan offer means that everyone who has bought Dark Company albums online will be able to listen to some previously unheard *new* material. This material will not be available on general release for some time to come.

We will send an email with a link to a secret web location where the unfinished tracks are stored in a playlist for Dark Company fans to enjoy.

Please do not share it! Otherwise we will have to change the secret code and send the details out to everybody again! This will probably cause a certain amount of disgruntlement to our admin assistant, which we would prefer to avoid.

These emails will be sent out in the next few days. New email addresses we receive from Dark Company fans who buy albums will be checked for periodically.

So if you would like to hear some secret Dark Company songs before they are put on general release for everyone else, it’s not too late. Simply pay for a download of one of their albums from Bandcamp and leave us your email when you do the download.

We will then send you the secret web address whenever we have an outbreak of admin work, which is normally at least once every couple of weeks.

Should you happen to live in the uk it is probably a good idea to download an album or two before the end of October. After brexit the value of the pound is likely to drop. Just saying.

There are two finished Dark Company albums available for download – Signmaker and Rage in Heaven. We sold out of CDs and cassettes a long time ago. Another run of old physical product is planned for when we have a budget to make such an investment.

To download a Dark Company album, simply click here to go to our store at Bandcamp.

In case the link is somehow broken, you can copy/paste this link into your address bar: https://wudrecords.bandcamp.com/

As you may know, Dark Company’s final studio album is intended to be a triple CD. It is a collection of all the last songs that the band were creating before Pete passed away in 2016.

The new album will be made up of a CD of ‘rock’, a CD of ‘reggae’ and a CD of ‘other’ songs. It has the working title A for Acronym. As you can imagine, it is slightly weird doing work on an album featuring a dead dude, especially one who was such a larger-than-life character.

At present about half of the new tracks are ready (slightly stretching the usage of the definition of ‘ready’) for an early pre-listen and we hope to add the rest of the ‘rock’ tracks in the coming weeks. The other two CDs will be developed more once the ‘rock’ CD is developed more and after we have advanced some of the work we are involved in with other artists. Feel free to check back every so often to see if something new has been added!

We are also trying, in between everything else, to work on Dark Company’s back catalogue material that remains unfinished. There is plenty of it! A couple of weeks ago we had Sven in the studios laying down drums for, among other things, Sinner from the Can of Worms album. It’s sounding wonderful and the new improved version will be uploaded sometime soon.

The biggest stumbling block to finishing more Dark Company back catalogue material is the guitar amp we want to use. It is one of the first vintage Mk I Marshalls ever to be produced in the early 60s and has undergone a couple of unique modifications. It has a very low serial number so is worth an absolute fortune. It sounds unbelievably good as well as being absurdly loud.

Unfortunately it needs an expensive service and overhaul and we simply don’t have the budget to do it at present. By selling a few more Dark Company albums we will be able to build a budget for the necessary work to be done.

We hope that Dark Company fans will enjoy this special exclusive fan offer. We intend to keep it open for the next few months and will let Dark Company fans know when it is ending via our News service and on Twitter.