Blodwen Has Terminated Agreement with Crysella Records

We have terminated our contract with Crysella Records due to failure of condition and fraud from their part. Full written statement is as follows:

Dear Fans, Friends and Families of BLODWEN,

We are here to let you guys know that we are no longer with Crysella Records owned by Joelen Mingi starting from August 1st 2015. We have terminated our contract with the label due to failure of condition and intentional fraud from their part. 

We signed our contract in November 2013 under the company of Mingi LTD registered in England & Wales No. 06743287. We believed the company was real because of that reference number. What a major shock to us when we found out accidentally through the official Government of UK website, that Mingi LTD company has been dissolved since 2010. Which simply means, that from the start, they had never been eligible to professionally sign any band; therefore affirming the dissolvement of the contract.

As you all know, Blodwen has released "When Autumn Ends" EP and "Winter Falls" album through Crysella Records world-wide and digitally last year. What you do not know, the band has received zero royalty from Crysella Records since the day we released our music. It was agreed that the band should receive the royalty in maximum 12 months after the company's receipt. It was also written in the contract that the band has the right to inspect these "receipts" and the label has to make their sales statement available online. We have requested to see this statement since September last year, where up until this message is written, we have never seen any statement or receipt, in any form. 

We requested for our rightful share of royalty because we needed to fund the physical production of "Winter Falls." We exhausted our band's fund on the making of "For A New World" MV and the recording, mixing and mastering process for "Winter Falls". Blodwen IS essentially an independent band where we record, mix and master everything in our own home studio; but of course we needed our gear to be adequate. We spent a lot of money investing in that, and we simply have no fund left to produce our own album in Indonesia. 

After continuous and months of pleas for them to address this matter, Crysella Records decided to shut us out and gave us no reply at all. This unprofessional way of dealing with their bands apparently is not applicable only to Blodwen, as we found out that almost all of the bands they signed are being treated the same way. After they successfully gained profit from the bands' music, they just simply shut all of us out and kept avoiding our demands with excuses  - meanwhile signing new, unknowing bands every month from all over the world.

The reason we finally decided to make this public, is to put a stop to this scam and to let this be a warning to all the bands out there. We owe you an explanation, especially for those of you who kept asking us on what is happening with "Winter Falls". We are also appalled to see that there are unknowing bands out there who actually submit their music to Crysella Records, hoping to be signed. All of these made us believe that this matter has to be addressed publicly, and let it be spread as much as possible to prevent bands getting scammed for their hard work.

We also urge everyone to STOP buying not only Blodwen's album available through Crysella Records' iTunes, Amazon, etc account; but ALL of the bands signed under Crysella because we know for sure your money is not going to go into the musicians' aid. Blodwen music is now available for sales ONLY at Bandcamp and nowhere else.

Needless to say, Blodwen is now back to being 100% independent, and we are very glad with this decision. We hope all of us can learn from this bitter experience, and let our experience be a warning to all of the independent bands out there to ALWAYS check the contract, and ALWAYS check the eligibility of the label. 

Updates on upcoming releases are coming soon.

Sincerely,

BLODWEN
Bernice  - Lexy  - Bayu Djody  - Indra Bayu  - Praditya

Let this be a warning to all other fellow independent musicians out there to always be careful. No matter how much you want exposure, this certainly is not worth it. We hope our experience can be a message to all of us to be more aware. 

That being said, we are working on upcoming releases for "Winter Falls" and other projects. We cannot wait to get back on track after 9 months of endless stress and confused-ness. We thank everyone who has supported the band through this hard moment, we cannot thank you enough. All the best for all of us.