Maple Death Vinyl, CD & Tape 28 Items

Das erste neue Album seit 7 Jahren des italokanadischen Londoner Maple Death-Gründers James Jonathan Clancy nach seinen Ensemble-Werken unter His Clancyness (Fat Cat, Maple Death) und Brutal Birthday (Total Punk, Improved Sequence). Clancy schöpft aus einer Vielzahl unterschiedlicher Einflüsse, um eine neue Art von Singer-Songwriter-Musik zu schaffen, die die Kluft zwischen kosmischem Loner-Folk, Proto-Ambient und die epische, aufwendig arrangierte Welt klassischer italienischer Soundtracks überwindet.

Longtime friend of the label, his fourth studio album is an homage to the IRL world and its twisted and varied romance with the worlds of our minds, in a wild collection of "soundtracks'', each a sonic re-construction dedicated to a distinct scene. Both musically and lyrically, this is Jack Name's most adventurous and genre-defying album. Elements of acid, dance, folk, micro-tonal weirdness, horror, sensuality, impressionism, and bursts of rock fuse with Name's most direct yet ethereal lyric writing to date. Listen to first single 'Cherie's Eyes' and watch the video directed by Jack Name & Stephi

Infinite reveries or translucent hallucinations, calm and steady pace, ghostly but undeniably present: this is ‘Suono In Un Tempo Trasfigurato’, Bono / Burattini’s debut for Maple Death.

Inspired by three movies of avantgarde cinematographer Maya Deren (At Land, Ritual in Transfigured Time and A study in Choreography for Camera), Francesca Bono (vocalist, performer, founder of Ofeliadorme and member of the Donnacirco collective) and Vittoria Burattini (percussionist, multi-faceted drummer and member of influential Italian avant-rock band Massimo Volume) created a dense hypnotic transfixing collection of songs based upon the sole use of the Juno 60 synthesizer and the organic linear pulsating sound of a drum kit.

These apparent limitations set the scene for an incredibly rich and rewarding voyage that immediately establishes a strong identity that oscillates between circular dream soundscapes and psychedelic rhythmic architectures. Bono / Burattini excels in threading magical images where objects transform without warning (Your House Is A Ghost) and collapse into kosmische grooves (La Trama Del Desiderio) or when humming electronics mold into temporal dimensions (Sogno Nel Vigneto). Burattini’s astonishing use of the drum kit and her mallet driven timbre produce space and tension (Dinner Illusion) perfectly complementing Bono’s synthesized realm made of nuance and reflection (Dancing Demons). One of the album’s key elements is the sparse use of Bono’s singing, an intricate mix of measured phrasing, breathing, spiral structures and extrasensorial-like choirs that seem to reference the rich Italian tradition of cosmic jazz, library music and the unmatched work of the RAI engineers in the 70s working with Gruppo Di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, Morricone, Daniela Casa. The driving Can-like pulse of Le Ossa shows force and flow while Stella’s haunting piano recreates a futuristic horror-movie OST.

'Suono In Un Tempo Trasfigurato' is beautifully recorded and mixed by Italian composer Stefano Pilia, a perfect match for Bono / Burattini’s sonic explorations and for a record that intersects experimental wave, alien grooves, contemporary electronics and futuristic sci-fi. Their blend of analog electronics and organic pulses place them in a time out of joint where dancing remains the one constant ritual.

No rock 'n' roll record has felt this mysterious and free-spirited in years. R.I.P. channels Jorge Ben's late-night, alcohol-soaked vibes (heard on 1970's Fôrça Bruta) and the rambling country-blues of Bob Dylan's Nashville Skyline. - NPR

And just like that he did it again, vanished. At this point Krano is an expert in the art of disappearing, after the dust settles he retreats, fades away into the hills behind Valdobbiadene and shuts down communication. It took four years to rescue from the vaults ‘Requiescat In Plavem’, Krano’s 2016 country-psychedelic masterpiece, a Venetian songbook for the Piave river shrouded in mystery and wonder that turned heads across the music circuits. Seven years later he’s back with ‘Lentius Profundius Suavius’ an incredible collection of songs about loss, solitude, death, darkness (Profundius) and sweetness, devotion and friendship (Suavius). Absolutely aching with soul, these ten songs channel rollicking twang, cosmic electric americana, honky-tonk mystics, noir gothic and fuzzed out spiritual rock’n’roll. As some would say, only the good sh*t, a masterclass in songcraft and true loner folk.

Who knows how, but ‘Lentius Profundius Suavius’ was vaguely inspired by the work of Italian peace activist Alexander Langer, a forgotten hero that relentlessly worked on eliminating ethnic boundaries and fostered ‘togetherness’ and true values of solidarity and ecological renaissance. “Slower rather than faster, deeper rather than higher and gently rather than hard” was Langer’s motto and fittingly is the reason behind the album’s title.

Krano’s music runs free, transcends barriers, a distillation of broken dreams tinted in black and white, where having the blues is not just a feeling but something you can’t shake, a wayfaring outsider on a journey side by side with players like Bill Fay, Robbie Basho, Skip Spence, Dave Bixby, inevitably bound to burn in eternity.

“Damn if there isn’t some mystical appeal at work in these songs.” - Aquarium Drunkard

What future? What futures? When fear substitutes truth / Misinformation obscures reality / And speculation prevails on experience / Brutality seems necessary / And empathy appears naive

One. Simple. Direct. Question. Quale Futuro? What Future? Obliterated by a tumultuous year with lingering anxiety, uncertainty and a city ready to break any strand of hope, Qlowski, resorted to what they know best, turning frustration into dreams, stockpiling possibilities, fabricating desire and simply, living. This is Quale Futuro? their debut LP for Maple Death Records and Feel It Records.

Distorted classical choral recordings, synths, processed guitar… The exquisitely complex human-machine interface experiments conducted by Stefano Pilia are kept in a delicate balance by John Duncan‘s lyrics and the soulful quality of his vocals, for an album of electroacoustic songs that are a unique blend for both artists. Seeds and memories from the past are re-actualized in the present through a machine electroacoustic compositional process creating a dark, gloomy and terrifying image of the future. Duncan’s lyrics offer a counterpointing liberation to the machine processes in action here, poetically revealing the dark and intimate struggle between the human soul and its rapport with the machine.

These recordings are a point of departure for Matilde Piazzi‘s inspired liner notes and photos, that take this release to another level entirely, becoming a metaphor for contemporary efforts to reach the limits of knowledge and discovery, their heroic nature and their inevitable failure.

Both artists worked on their respective sections in isolation, Pilia in an industrial area of central Bologna, Duncan in the wilderness several kilometers south of the urban sprawl. Together, their recordings developed an almost magnetic attraction that seemed to meld effortlessly.

The experience of listening quickly takes on a cinematic quality, exquisitely moving from an oceanic uplifting (Try Again) to the depths of apocalyptic, unsettling vocals (Fare Forward), constantly maintaining a lush, richly complex tapestry. The linear understanding of time is suddenly gone, dominated by a crushing machine-defined present, with Duncan’s lyrics and vocals becoming a shamanic portal to a possible future.

Distorted classical choral recordings, synths, processed guitar… The exquisitely complex human-machine interface experiments conducted by Stefano Pilia are kept in a delicate balance by John Duncan‘s lyrics and the soulful quality of his vocals, for an album of electroacoustic songs that are a unique blend for both artists. Seeds and memories from the past are re-actualized in the present through a machine electroacoustic compositional process creating a dark, gloomy and terrifying image of the future. Duncan’s lyrics offer a counterpointing liberation to the machine processes in action here, poetically revealing the dark and intimate struggle between the human soul and its rapport with the machine.

These recordings are a point of departure for Matilde Piazzi‘s inspired liner notes and photos, that take this release to another level entirely, becoming a metaphor for contemporary efforts to reach the limits of knowledge and discovery, their heroic nature and their inevitable failure.

Both artists worked on their respective sections in isolation, Pilia in an industrial area of central Bologna, Duncan in the wilderness several kilometers south of the urban sprawl. Together, their recordings developed an almost magnetic attraction that seemed to meld effortlessly.

The experience of listening quickly takes on a cinematic quality, exquisitely moving from an oceanic uplifting (Try Again) to the depths of apocalyptic, unsettling vocals (Fare Forward), constantly maintaining a lush, richly complex tapestry. The linear understanding of time is suddenly gone, dominated by a crushing machine-defined present, with Duncan’s lyrics and vocals becoming a shamanic portal to a possible future.

Rolling through life, an open mind like an ocean, an infinite ride that comes furiously crashing to a halt. This is Whitney K’s ‘Two Years’, a deep dive into the Canadian songwriter’s journey through vulnerability, change and ultimately letting his guard down.

Whitney K is the wandering stalwart Konner Whitney, a Whitehorse Yukon resident who has spent time in Vancouver, Montreal, Burnaby and Los Angeles. We met the character in 2016 through his intoxicating 4-track recorded manifesto ‘Goodnight’, a head on collision into 24 hours of illusioned romance and modern day escapism. Fast forward to 2021, lift those curtains, aptly titled ‘Good Morning’ is the opening track on ‘Two Years’, a different cracker, a deliberate record about transformation, where to put it simply, Whitney K has arrived. Enlisting the aid of main collaborator and bandmate Josh Boguski and drummer Avalon Rossignol-Tassonyi, the focus has been shifted, folklore and realism becoming reckoning and truthfulness, what was outsider folk is now political poetry, life in motion delivered through a freeway ridden baritone voice that transforms the mundane into extraordinary. Written with a completely different mindset and a conscious effort to break with the traditions of a corrupt, hypocritical, and hateful society/lineage, Konner’s pen is precise and daring, uniting the earnestness of Willie Nelson and the comedy relief of Harry Nilsson on the beautiful ‘Me Or The Party #165’, or when painting Canada’s colonial past and heartland image on the primitive rock’n’roll anthem ‘Trans-Canada Oil Boom Blues’. There is no avoidance, no excuses, whether your self portrait in the mirror resembles a five dollar caricature sold on a boardwalk, the John Cale-esque opener ‘Good Morning’, or whether you learn you are worthy of love like on the poignant vignette ‘Maryland’, the beautifully arranged album closer that echoes Tin Pan Alley with Lou Reed’s grit. ‘Two Years’ also presents plenty of fun, the perfectly stumblin’ garage rocker ‘Last Night #2’, the honky tonk blues coming-of-age episode ‘Cowboy City Rocker’ and the cello/violin belter ‘Hit This Pipe’. One of Whitney K’s many gems is ‘The Weekend’ a minimalist spectral ode to hope where the band’s restriction brings out the pure force and vocal command of the ramblin’ troubadour. Time to open your arms, he’s coming out of no fun city and aiming straight for you.

A download code is included. If you could paint the world black, rediscover it with a flashlight illuminating every single detail and turn each finding into an obsession while gliding across the murk then you might stumble into Blak Saagan’s new magniloquent quest ‘Se Ci Fosse La Luce Sarebbe Bellissimo’ (If there were light it would be beautiful), a monstrous work of dedication and sound architecture that investigates and soundtracks one of the saddest and most obscure pages of Italian history: the 1978 kidnapping of former prime-minister Aldo Moro by the Red Brigade terrorists. Based near the Venetian lagoon, Samuele Gottardello aka Blak Saagan, has been crafting his own library music for years merging the tradition of Italian 60s/70s psychedelic OST’s, ambient, drone, rhythmic electronics with kosmische kraut landscapes and Industrial wave to create ritual hypnagogic experiences. While his first record ‘A Personal Voyage’ explored outer space influenced by the work of cosmologist Carl Sagan, ‘Se Ci Fosse La Luce Sarebbe Bellissimo’ is a completely different beast, a sinister terrestrial atmosphere pervades the recordings, a relentless throbbing beat that maps out the complexity of this new endeavour. Every song has a title that connects with the Aldo Moro case; 54 days from Moro’s kidnapping and assault on March 16th 1978 to the finding of his body in the trunk of a Renault 4 on May 9th, the 86 letters he wrote during his detention, the communications and negotiations and the uncertain role of the secret services. It’s like a path that goes deeper and deeper, with moments of tension, moments of suspense, dream passages obfuscating reality and drum rolls echoing hyper-reality. One could say it’s like the soundtrack of a movie that was never shot. Recorded over the course of two years with the use of a Farfisa Vip 205 organ, Roland Tr-606 and 505 drum machines, Siel Orchestra synthesizer, Moog Model D and various analog effects, this 4 sided LP comes as dense as they can, moving from the autobahn Kraftwerkian loop images of ‘Convergenze Parallele’ to the cold blooded synth-wave of ‘Scuola Hyperion’ and ‘Achtung Achtung’. ‘L’uomo incapucciato’ ups the drama recalling Goblin’s 1978 OST for Dawn Of The Dead, while ‘Ore 9: Attacco al Cuore dello Stato’ is pure Italian police soundtracks, elevating gongs, percussion and orchestral elements to Morriconian suspense that reaches new heights in ‘E Lo Spettro Disse: Gradoli’ where celestial flutes intertwine and carry on the rapturous terrestrial legacy of Italian maestros Alessandro Alessandroni, Egisto Macchi and Piero Umiliani. Blak Saagan’s work would not be complete without nods to Carpenter and the 1978 crossroads where post-punk, sci-fi, new wave and minimalism collided creating alien experiments (‘Dentro la Prigione del Popolo’, ‘La Firma Del Legionario’). Ending on the majestic 8 minute title-track, Se Ci Fosse La Luce Sarebbe Bellissimo, the album finds its moment of catharsis, a world free of any rhythmic constriction where the mystical dances with the unknown and where light finally has permission to invade and permeate reality.

Swarm of failing robots, where are you running to? This is Milano in 2020, put your gloves on, it’s brutal out there. Hailing from the Occult Punk Gang collective and the experimental scene that calls Macao home, Wisecrack perfectly exemplify the bleak narrow futureless city with their heavy dose of industrial bass music. Their Maple Death self-titled debut is a furious mix of mind bending circuit breakcore rhythms, post-rave, hard techno and synth-punk delivered with an uncanny edge, a kinetic body voyage through vexation that juxtaposes celestial placidity (closing track ‘Wrongful Death’) with residual rage (‘Lights Off’). Federico Campo and Francesco Manzato, the duo behind Wisecrack, came together in late 2018, to create music inspired mainly by bass and distortion, documenting city hallucination, suburban sprawls and urban isolation. Their first output ‘Flesh’ was included as a cut in Bristol’s Avon Terror Corps compilation ‘Avon Garde’, epitomizing the duo’s ties to the city’s musical scene: post-dub, industrial, club culture. What characterizes Wisecrack is their unique approach, metallic dry beats, a cyber-punk sneering vocalist and a tribal thump that would not feel out of place on Chicago’s legendary Wax Trax Records.

Paranoid, alone, possessed, vibrant… has this ever been your state of mind on your morning commute to work? Just a human lost in the city, lost in the sea of machines, overwhelmed by fate, facts and the inevitability of those train tracks that someone has already laid out for you.
Named after the subway C line that runs through Roma Est and the Pigneto neighborhood, Metro Crowd are an industrial post-punk quartet that have carved out their sound on massive doses of 9 to 5 paranoia, metropolitan psychosis, corporate cubicles, government jobs and total annihilation. The four members represent an eccentric crosspollination of the florid Roma scene: cartoonist Vic Sinex, Gabor from acid minimal synth duo Holiday Inn, Ludovico T from hardcore chaotic punks Sect Mark, Toni Cutrone from Mai Mai Mai, one of the primary Italian occult psychedelic movers with his label No=Fi Recordings and Dal Verme venue.
Planning:, their first album for Maple Death (following an acclaimed first record on My Own Private Records/Legno Dischi), is a complete outer space Kafkian journey through a post-industrial landscape where mankind is fighting just to keep its head above water, basically to survive. Metro Crowd’s sound is built upon that sense of disgust, repulsion, unease. It’s a world where alien guitars meet factory tribalism, shifty bass patterns fight over circular rhythms and dramatic sloganeering. They inhabit that same oddball cosmos that gave birth to bands like Chrome, Z’EV, the old Subterranean Records catalogue, Foetus, Cabaret Voltaire, Flipper, early EBM tinged Ministry. What really sets them apart is their theatrical deadpan, shall I dare say a Mediterranean tinged New Wave flare and their giddy take on furious eccentric punk that probably comes from the Italian tradition of early 80s where bands like Move and Gaznevada were creating synthetic paths made of fog, lasers and flanger effects.
Are you controlling your trajectory, is the train fully automated or is there a driver steering your life in the wrong direction?

Creeping out of Torino’s longest dark winter nights, isolated and shrouded in mystery just like the cities’ deep connection to black magic, here comes SabaSaba, the newest addition to the Maple Death family. Western esotericism converting pagan mystic’s one by one!

No more waiting, His Electro Blue Voice's follow up to their Sub Pop debut is finally out via yours truly Maple Death & Irong Lung. Mental Hoop took three years to complete, a change in pace from the band’s past frenetic discography: gone is the organic earthy carefree approach of Ruthless Sperm now replaced by mind games, obsession, celestial psych and extra terror. No worries though, HEBV is as savage as ever, bringing it’s A-game and its usual brand of punishing dark-punk, Italo Hardcore, kraut beats, metallic noise and industrial.

Everything about Stefano Pilia’s spiritual journey always seemed to point directly towards ‘Spiralis Aurea’, his astounding 2022 release for Die Schachtel, a deeply resonating piece of art that intertwines traces of sacred geometry, collective experience and elusive connections between nature and human kind. ‘Spiralis Aurea Trio’ adds an extra layer, an opera of sheer beauty and execution, will, force and composure. The original cycle of compositions live and breath, adapted and transformed, taking their initial meaning and depth to new heights, while maintaining the concepts of ‘divine geometry’ and their sacred mystique intact, displaying a deep resonance with works by La Monte Young, Arvo Pärt, Pauline Oliveros, Eliane Radigue, Krzysztof Penderecki, and Terry Riley.

Whitney K and band are back with an electric live album that captures the best from their classics ‘Two Years’ and ‘Hard To Be A God’, including a few nuggets from the back catalog and the unreleased tune aptly titled ‘Dire Straits’.

If ‘Two Years’ was the thunder, the rawness and the spirit, a combination of outsider folk, modern psych, grit, humor and everything in between, ‘Hard To Be A God’ was the sophistication, the dedication, the mind traveling far and beyond… ‘Vivi!’ is the hot sauce missing, the perfect setting, the inevitable gift, really putting the word ‘motion’ behind the poetry, the electricity carrying the rollicking combo, the road opening up literally wide and infinite and the wide-eyed dreams becoming a coliseum standing in front of the chaos.

Recorded live in Montreal upon returning from Whitney K’s first European month long tour, ‘Vivi!’ is a vivid, exuberant and jarring photograph of a band that’s lived to see the force of ‘togetherness’, a ritual, a communion of sorts where emotions run free and into the unknown.

‘Vivi!’ encapsulates everything that makes Whitney K unique, the freewheelin’ songwriting, visions painted with utterly precise strokes, rock’n’roll bravado, sonic interplay, feedback and shimmer, velvet touches and goldmines, Modern Lovers, Television, Fred Neil, Harry Nilsson, Karen Dalton and the jingle-jangle of tomorrow. Played beautifully by Konner Whitney, Joshua Boguski, Marlon Kroll and Avalon Tassonyi, there is no way back, only one way in and it’s positioned crystal clear right in front of us. Alive.