​IMPRINTS: M&P

Imprints brings you regular profiles of the most exciting record labels the world over, with input from the movers and shakers who contribute to their local electronic music communities.

Name: M&P
Vibe: Diverse
Founded: 2015
Location: Toronto, Canada
Upcoming releases: Filament EP
Artists-to-watch: BSMNT, Sylvermayne

As Canada's most populous city, Toronto is well known for its cultural diversity. Though things are far from perfect, Toronto's arts community is always striving to convert the unfamiliar into a creative output. M&P, the focus of our latest IMPRINT, is grappling with that challenge as a musical entity. Those efforts have produced a burgeoning repertoire of releases that are hard to pin down­—they seem equally driven by experimentation, revelry, and temperance. Zach Scragg's "Seabird" is a prime example of the latter and you can see for yourself below. While it might tease a dancefloor memory here and there, most of its elements are dedicated to the sort of fuzzy warmth born from a good night in, free of any and all notions of FOMO. Elsewhere, productions from label manager Ryan Pierre, WhoKnew, Sylvermayne (one-half of techno duo, ÈBONY), and BSMNT offer a very different sort of heat. Each of those sounds contributes to a larger vision for the imprint's upcoming collaborative release, Filament. We spoke to Ryan Pierre about that release and how it all came to be for the M&P squad.

THUMP: What's the deal?
Ryan Pierre: M&P is an independent label full of Toronto producers that started out as a group of friends who met bi-monthly to share productions and give technical and artistic feedback. We've since started hosting events focused on live original productions and interesting venues.

Explain the name.
The name was a twist on what we were calling our bi-monthly meet-ups. The producer meet became Meat & Produce and now it's M&P.

How would you describe M&P's sound?
It's definitely well rounded. If you started your day watching the sunrise, spent the morning exploring a new city on foot, had an afternoon jam in a sunny park and then, at nightfall, found the darkest underground party in the city to dance at all night—we could soundtrack the whole thing.

Tell us about the scene in Toronto.
You have to be a little adventurous in Toronto. It's one of those cities where you can go out with friends to a beautiful exclusive loft party and then stumble across the street to some smoky red-lit show in a tiny room and get transported back to someone's take on the '60s.

What are your favourite labels that aren't your own?
Box Aus Holz, New Kanada, Other People, L.I.E.S., Berceuse Heroqiue, Opal Tapes, Creme, Werkdiscs.

Have your releases been received as well as you'd hoped?
We've only had a few releases, so we're impressed with how things have gone in such a short time.

What makes your label different?
Our inner workings, we're pretty democratic in our decision-making. We're also planning to try an "open source" release in the near future, where we release another compilation EP and include the stems for anyone to throw into a set or remix.

Which release would you recommend to introduce a new listener to your label?

How do you choose the artists that you work with?
Everyone in M&P has been involved more or less since the beginning. In the future, we would like to keep things based on personal connections and music we're excited about.

Tell us about your next release and the track we're premiering below.
"Seabird" is a track that Zach wrote this year during the drearier part of Toronto's winter. The name is inspired by the endless migration of the Arctic tern, traveling annually overseas from the Arctic to the Antarctic and back. The track is coming out on our second compilation, the Filament EP. Although it only includes tracks from five of the seven artists on M&P, it's a sound picture of our diversity as a group. We'd like it to set the stage for our upcoming individual artist releases.

M&P is on Facebook // SoundCloud