Happy New Ear 2022!

Happy New Ear 2022! \,,/(^_^)\,,/

It is with great pleasure that we wish everybody a very Happy New Year in 2022! 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 2021. 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 2021 Covid continued to ravage the planet and cause untold disruption and misery to millions. We were very lucky in 2021, with very few of the wider Wud family being afflicted with the dreaded lurgulation. In 2020 we lost four dear souls to covid. May they rest in peace.

Musically, 2021 was a rather quiet year for Wud Records. We only managed to release one track, Seven Screaming Dizbusters by The Bastard Sons of Dennis. The best part was that its release finally completed the Cosy Lube Turtle album.

Dark Company celebrated their 30th anniversary in 2021. A lot of work was done to upgrade Dark Company‘s forthcoming Alien Heat album. All 16 tracks received a makeover. They are not finished but we are generally very pleased with how most of them are coming along.

The album is largely waiting on guitar parts, which need a very old amplifier to be repaired by a specialist. He is rarely available due to logistical difficulties caused by covid and distance. The situation is complicated further by the fact that we don’t trust a courier service to care for this delicate equipment.

One of the most exciting developments in 2021 was the addition of two session musicians to our bands’ recoridngs.

Richard Davies played some beautiful tenor sax for Dark Company on their songs Jigsaw, Bodyfire and Traveller.

Alison Reynolds provided us with some amazing cello for Dark Company‘s Damaged and Sinner, the latter of which we are still processing.

We sincerely hope there will be more to come from both of them in 2022, with a few tracks by both Flicker and Dark Company slated for session tenor sax and cello.

In addition, we plan to seek out the services of more session players for a handful of recordings which are not covered by our team.

Also in 2021, a new band was added to the Archives – the wonderful Demon Groove Lizards. More of their music will be added soon.

There was more added to the Archives from the Critical Error family of bands too, wth the addition of the Fruit Bats and some other Critical Error material.

Of our legacy bands, Lemming Merngue, Now and Mark Drower and the Everyones received new articles and memoirs from different contributors. Fascinating reading and beautifully written! There may be more memories added to the Mark Drower and the Everyones pages in 2022 if things go well.

A few new album covers were created for old albums. Recluse, Stephen Yates and Demon Grrove Lizards from the Archives all benefitted from new album artwork, as did our legacy band The Subterraineans. There were photo galleries added for Pok the Bard and our Archive band The Chillun as well.

Our publishing partner, Explicit Music, gave The Bastard Sons of Dennis a major upgrade to their Cherry Smoke Empire pages.

Although we have not had as much time to spend on social media in 2021, we have enjoyed a great year on Twitter and a good one on Instagram as well. We hope to be back for more there in 2022.

On SoundCloud, our overall streams were marginally down on 2020 but still good overall.

Over at Bandcamp the year began very strongly but then faded a little for the remainder, apart from a spike in sales when we announced Dark Company’s 30th Anniversary offer.

Looking ahead, we are very hopeful of releasing more than just one track in 2022! We hope there will be fewer disruptions and more time for music in the coming months. We shall of course be making all such announcements in our News service and on Twitter.

What are you planning to achieve in 2022? Whatever it may be, we wish you success beyond your wildest dreams and a very Happy New Ear!