Wud Records: April 2022 top ten tracks published at SoundCloud

The top ten SoundCloud tracks for April 2022 from Wud Records have been published in a new playlist.

Tracks are arranged from one to ten according to their popularity. The algorithm we use gives greatest weight to reposts, then likes and comments (active engagement) over plays.

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!

Songs published at Bandcamp and other platforms are omitted from the SoundCloud statistics because they would require separate treatment.

Archive tracks and bonus tracks are also ignored, as are likes and comments from people who clearly didn’t listen to the music.

Only you, the listener, can influence our May 2022 playlist. So if there is a track you particularly like, keep playing it! Leave a comment, repost it and share it to your social media feeds!

Massive thanks go out to everybody who helped to support all of us during April 2022 by listening to, commenting on and reposting our bands’ tracks on SoundCloud, as well as other platforms.

All the wonderful fans of our bands who supported us with downloads from Bandcamp are especially appreciated because they genuinely help us keep the fires burning. 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 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 seem worthwhile.

Congratulations to Flicker! Flicker enjoyed a good month on the new chart, occupying three of the positions. All of the Flicker tracks are from their wonderful 2002 album At Least 1000 Words.

Remaining at the very top of our chart is Oily Road Hideaway, a delightful latin jazz dance. Oily Road Hideaway is the only track from Flicker‘s first album with programmed drums. It also has twin bass guitars playing in unison, with Dave on his Fender and George on the Plank.

Another Star in the Sky is the second Flicker track to appear on the April 2022 chart. Another Star in the Sky is a beautiful wistful bluesy jazzy rock instrumental which features Lucy Welsman on cello. This one has been in and out of the top ten since we first joined SoundCloud and re-enters this month at number three.

Welcome to the Family climbs one place on the new chart from nine to eight and is the third Flicker tune to find representation. This is another 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.

Flicker‘s second album, HappySad, is under construction and you can listen to it as it stands right now by clicking here. Several more tracks are likely to be released in the coming weeks and months, so please keep an eye and an ear on our News service and Twitter.

There are four songs in total by Dark Company, who enjoyed another splendid month for Wud Records on SoundCloud during April 2022. The band’s first four albums all find representation, with one song each from Signmaker, Rage in Heaven, Alien Heat and Can of Worms.

Spiritual Remission from the album Can of Worms climbs two places from last month‘s number four to this month’s number two. It features Pete’s wonderfully languid vocals and lyrics that reference literature and legend as well as personal experiences.

Recently Spiritual Remission has been enhanced with new bass and drums and the wonderful melodica playing of Olly Joseph. We are hoping to be able to include Olly’s talents in a few more songs in the future. You can listen to Olly’s fabulous compositions at his SoundClloud page by clicking here.

Please remember to follow our News service and Twitter for further announcements regarding the forthcoming upgrades to the Can of Worms album.

Probably due to an outbreak of recent radio play, Medicines is climbing our charts yet again, this time up from six to number four. Medicines has been our biggest selling song over the years and people still seek it out and enjoy listening to it.

Medicines was popular in Europe rather than in the uk where Dark Company formed. Mainstream radio in the uk didn’t want to play it as the intro was “too long” and the lyrics “too difficult to understand”. They are about a subject other than procreation, the only subject a dumbed down mainstream audience seems capable of understanding, according to the purveyors of mainstream media themselves.

Down four places from last month‘s number two to number six is Crash, from Dark Company‘s first album, Signmaker. Crash is a high octane esoteric mix of hard rock and jazz funk. It has been likened to Talking Heads, Van Halen, AC/DC, ZZ Top and The Who amongst others.

Crash was originally an Alien Heat song, and Alien Heat used it to open their live show. Sadly, no recording of the Alien Heat version still exists, as far as we know.

There is also a different work-in-progress version of Crash on Dark Company‘s forthcoming Alien Heat album and a wonderful remix featuring lots of voice samples from an omnibus edition of EastEnders, broadcast on BBC television in late 1991.

Down to number ten this month is Dark Company’s awesome alternative / hard / psychedelic rock and funk song Dancing In The Dark. The version you can hear is still work-in-progress.

Pete wrote the lyrics in 1989 and the song was originally performed by Alien Heat. Dancing In The Dark describes his memories of going nightclubbing in the West End of London after being revved up by his good friend Billy.

Pete was not actually terribly keen on the song and would always refer to it as “Farting in the Park”.

Back in the days of Alien Heat, Dancing In The Dark included Graham’s drum solo. This was when everyone in the band would roll a cigarette (or something a little more flavoursome) while he performed it, hopefully having the deed done and the object lit in time to carry on with the song at the drum solo’s conclusion.

Two of the remaining songs on the April 2022 chart come from The Ug Brothers. Spin Gone Crazy is a gloriously rifftastic rocky cruise, driven by the bass and drums. Dave wrote the lyrics that describe his thoughts and feelings when driving a powerful motorcycle. The opening riif was one that George had been kicking around for a few years, before the rest of the music came one day at Ug Brothers HQ in the centre of Exeter.

The other is an ugstrumental bootleg of Fang, a new entry at number seven and a perrenial live rock favourite with a quick tempo and rather bleak lyrics about sleep vampires. Sleep vampires, we are told, are people who steal your sleep. They can sleep soundly while you toss and turn and are unable to find peace of mind or comfort of body.

Although this rendition of Fang is a lofi instrumental jam salvaged from cassette, there is another version by Doctor Watson with vocals, which you can enjoy by clicking here.

Alchemeon are the final act to find representation in our chart this month. Their ever-popular song The Freaks (Shall Inherit The Earth) pops back into the charts at number nine. The Freaks was a previous number one song and it would be no surprise if it were to reach the pinnacle of the Wud Records SoundCloud Charts again some day.

None of our other acts made it onto the chart this month.

If you would like to go to SoundCloud to hear the top ten songs from Wud Records in April 2022, 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.

Recently we have added a few more of the previous charts as pages to their section of this website. We are still nearly two years behind in this work, but at least a little catching up has been done. If you’d like to see all our old charts, they can be accessed easily by clicking here. More pages will be added soon, when there is time.