News

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 independent and not associated with ourselves in any way. We simply accumulated songs that we all liked during May 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.

There is a vast amount of great music on SoundCloud if you have the time and inclination to filter through it. If you happen to be looking out for some great new music, we’ve already done that filtering for you! May’s Discoveries playlist has a total of 50 tracks and is the largest of our Discoveries playlists so far. Can you complete the challenge of listening to every track?

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!

Are you a member of SoundCloud? We always follow back if you have your own tracks and we always listen eventually, even if it takes a few weeks. So if you would like the opportunity of a bit of free publicity you could follow Wud Records on SoundCloud. It’s even free to join!

We hope that some more people will find and listen to the wonderful songs on this new playlist of musical discoveries. Each one has something that we felt was special or interesting in some way. Because we enjoyed them so much, we feel that it would be great if the artists in question could have a bit more exposure for their fabulous works. So please listen, enjoy, share and check out some of these wonderful bands. In many cases it was a tough job to choose just one track.

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.

If you find some new favourites on there, why not shout about them on social media? We are sure the artistes responsible for creating the music will welcome such word-of-mouth exposure.

If you would like to listen to this special new playlist of May 2017 Musical Discoveries over at SoundCloud, please click here.

If you would like easy access to all of our previous months’ musical discoveries playlists, please click here.

The top ten tracks for May 2017 from Wud Records have been published in a new playlist at SoundCloud. Tracks have been arranged from one to ten according to their popularity and take into account plays, likes and reposts at SoundCloud.

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

Only you, the listener, can influence our June 2017 playlist. So if there is a track you particularly like, keep playing it!

We’d like to thank everybody who helped to make May 2017 another massive month for us by listening, commenting and reposting our bands’ tracks. May‘s figures were down somewhat compared to April, but May was still our second-busiest month ever on SoundCloud. After just five months of 2017, we have already passed the total number of SoundCloud plays we had in 2016. Hooray! \W/

Due largely to the changing political situation in the UK caused by Brexit, we are struggling to stay on top of things. As such we have not been able to keep our online promotional drive going as strongly as we would like. The plan is to move our entire operation to the European mainland in the coming months, which will enable activities to return to normal. We will keep all of our fans updated via the News service and on Twitter.

A special mention needs to go out to Atom Collector Records who helped us achieve great results. If you have tracks on SoundCloud, YouTube or Spotify, you too could see considerable growth in activity. It’s free to join. Just click here to go to their site.

Congratulations to Dark Company who have dominated the top of this month’s chart. Their song Medicines, which has been a massive track for us all over the years, returns to the top of the charts ahead of Killer. Also appearing on this month’s chart are The Subterraineans, Wud and Flicker.

If you would like to go to SoundCloud to hear the top ten songs from Wud Records in May 2017, as played, liked 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 News service or homepage.

Recently we have become involved with a few support networks for DIY musicians and indie labels. These networks have helped raise our online profile, boost our fanbase and increase plays and sales of songs and album. Thanks guys! :)

In order for others to find them and join in easily, a new section has been created in our fabulous Links page. This section has been named ‘Support Networks’ and due to alphabetical sortings, it appears at the bottom of the Links page.

Every link in the Support Networks section is highly recommended. If you check all of them out thoroughly and do the things that they ask to be included or featured, you will see results. We guarantee it.

Further great and helpful support networks will be added to the list on an ongoing basis, so do check back from time to time. There are more support networks with whom we are in touch and there must be thousands more we have not yet encountered. We will only link to the ones that we have experience of and can recommend on a personal and professional basis. You will be able to see other such networks we recommend if you follow us on Twitter.

There has never been a better time in the history of this planet to be a musician. The wonder of the internet is that it gives us all the opportunity to be discovered by new audiences and new fans across the entire world. By joining in and networking with others who share our philosophies, we all find ourselves stronger together.

Major labels and the mainstream media continue to peddle their bland manufactured mediocre muzak, coated in sparkly saccharine, to try to maintain their dumbed-down and censored control of minds and wallets. More and more individuals are empowering themselves and seeking the knowledge and enlightenment that the discovery of real music brings. Long live the revolution!

Wud Records now offer free downloads or pay what you want on all downloadable music. You can now download anything you want from Bandcamp for free! This global change is effective immediately.

Of course, if the music we release has some value for you and you would like to contribute financially, we greatly appreciate it. Just like everyone else, we need to keep the electricity on, the rent paid, our websites and equipment maintained, and our artists need to buy a loaf of bread sometimes to keep this whole thing going.

We have decided to do this after a period of research and chin-rubbing. It was quite a lot of the latter and now we all need to apply special chin ointment, thrice daily. But never mind.

Most people who download our music have tended to pay more than the minimum asking price. Also there are some who may not be hearing and loving our bands’ music because to them the whole issue of payment can be an access problem.

All we need from you now, if you decide to download some of our music for free, is an email address. This is so we can send you an occasional message. These occasional messages tend to be extremely occasional, the previous one being sent in 2014. So it’s not such a big deal.

If you happen to see any obselete text concerning pricing on any of our Bandcamp pages, please take no notice as this new policy now takes president. You can even let us know of such writings so we can change them should you find any. Please email info@wudrecords.co.uk to give us the heads-up.

Our free downloads or pay what you want policy even extends to the newest releases. More are one the way too, with several of Pok’s songs progressing well. Due largely to the difficulties being imposed on us by the current Brexit situation we are concentrating on working with Pok and The Bastard Sons of Dennis as much as possible as they will be remaining in the UK when we relocate.

Why don’t you come and listen to some of our bands’ glorious music at Bandcamp? Remember – free downloads or pay what you want! Just click here to open the page.

Good Times is the latest track to be released by The Bastard Sons of Dennis. It is also the final track to add to complete their Cherry Smoke Empire album.

As with the rest of the album, you can name your own price when you download Good Times. This even includes downloading for free if wish. Obviously, if you feel the track has some value for you, then any contributions towards keeping us all supplied with electricity and bread are greatly appreciated!

Good Times is a song in the glorious key of G that Andy wrote many years ago. It is about a tale that the driver of a vehicle told his passenger, who was a hitchhiker, and the hitchhiker’s recounting of said tale.

Originally The Bastard Sons of Dennis recorded a somewhat more electrified version of Good Times, but to be brutally honest it was rather shambolic. We used the arrangement, which we felt was bang on, and re-recorded everything. The new recording is at 432hz. It was interesting recording guitar tuned to 432hz whilst listening to the guides, which were tuned to 440hz!

The Bastard Sons of Dennis played Good Times live on many occasions and would even use it to start some of their performances. The acoustic funk jam at the beginning (and towards the end) was great for a bit of on-the-fly knob twiddling for whoever was the front-of-house engineer at a show.

It’s taken about six years to put the whole Cherry Smoke Empire album together so far. Now that all the tracks for it are in place, we need to finalise the album before calling it done. This includes making sure all the lyrics, credits, links, tags, copyrighting, barcodes, PRS/MCPS and artwork are sorted, as well as checking out all of the mixes to see if anything needs a final tweak.

In other news concerning The Bastard Sons of Dennis, a new EP is in the making. There are five new and diverse tracks in varying amounts of bits and pieces within our machines. This forthcoming EP will be a bigger production and feature more electric instruments, synths and the sound of a full band. We shall continue to bring you all the news concerning The Bastard Sons of Dennis in our News service and on Twitter.

If you would like to hear or download Good Times by the Bastard Sons of Dennis from Bandcamp, please click here.

To listen to it here at Wud Records instead, click here to open the Cherry Smoke Empire page.

Andromeda now have a presence in our Archives! Two new pages have been made for them, a general page and one for their fabulous and varied World 3 album released in 2001. We are still massive fans of the band Andromeda and their fabulous music, even nearly 20 years after they stopped performing.

World 3 is a collection of 13 tracks and was the third and final release by Andromeda. Many different genres are covered on this musical journey. To name just a few, Nothingtime TV is a ludicrously catchy acoustic song based around one of *THE* great chord sequences in music. It really is a beauty. Pin and Sad are both more electro/altrock assaults to get the room jumping, the latter being the more wistful. C is a whimsical, thought-provoking piece of trip-hop and another earworm. The title track, World 3, is an insane post-pop piano piece with added bonkersness.

Andromeda’s studio albums tended to be more trip-hop or electronic, whereas their live sets were closer to alternative rock or nu-metal. Joe Ings, the band’s vocalist, was also a top quality engineer with a great ear and highly creative imagination who enjoyed getting digital and beardy with the DAW and the electronics. Amy and Chubs, lead guitar and bass respectively, were also fond of and actively involved in the more digital side of things.

There are two further CDs from Andromeda which we hope to be able to add to the Archives section of Wud Records in the coming weeks. Walking in a Straight Line is a five-track EP released in 1999 which features the awesome drumming talent of Max Welsman. Living Thing is a four-track EP from 2001, which was created by the ever-present trio of Joe, Amy and Chubs. We shall let you know about any such additions to the Archives in our News service and on Twitter.

The Archives are full of wonderful music from great bands who are sadly no longer playing. At least some of their songs have been preserved here for their fans to enjoy, and for new fans to discover. We hope you will discover some of your own favourites among them. If you happen to have anything to add to any of our collections, please get in touch as we would love to hear from you.

To listen to World 3 by Andromeda right here at Wud Records, please click here.

If you prefer to listen over at SoundCloud instead, please click here.