Maple Death Records

Jonathan Clancy developed Maple Death Records between Canada and Italy, with the label now based in Bologna and London. In an interview, he dates its beginnings to late 2014, describing a wish to document musicians around him and to work differently from the labels he had encountered as an artist.

The catalogue brings together Krano, Blak Saagan, WOW, Qlowski, Laura Agnusdei and Stefano Pilia, among others. Punk and noise sit alongside folk, electronic music and more meditative instrumental recordings. Clancy treats the connections between artists and the narratives of individual records as a stronger organising principle than genre. Vinyl and cassette editions both have a role: sleeve design supplies space to tell a record's story, while tapes can support experiments with fewer production pressures. Collaborations with other independent labels extend that community beyond its own releases.