Focus: Canary Records

Who are you and where are you from?
We’re Canary Records, an Independent Record Label based in Durham.

What is it you do?
We do everything we can to support independent, emerging music. Whether it’s helping with releases, providing live music opportunities, or making sure musicians have the resources needed to push their music to the next level, we’re all about breaking down boundaries without the whole ‘signing’ process that traditionally takes advantage of artists.

How long have you been doing it?
We’re all musicians and music fans at heart. We properly got to know each other through playing in Uni bands and putting on gigs in Durham. We finally made the jump and founded Canary Records in July 2022.

What inspires you?
Finding new music. There’s nothing better than stumbling across that incredible band with 800 monthly listeners whose genre you can’t quite put into words. Our goal is to make sure these artists get the attention and opportunities they deserve.

Tell us about your work.
Live music is a big part of what we do, putting on everything from open mic nights to bar and club gigs. We had a smaller tent at the Northern Kin Festival which was really cool. We put together a lineup of some immensely talented independent artists and it made us realise how passionate we are about this. There’s some great talent in the North East that more people should be made aware of.

What have you got coming up in the future?
On top of the gigs and releases that we’re working on, we’re getting involved with more festivals over the next year which we couldn’t be more excited about. Bigger stages and bigger slots means a bigger platform for us to work with. There’s a lot in the pipeline and we can’t wait to be able to share it over the next few months.

Where can people find out more about you?
Our Instagram is @canary_records and our Facebook is @thecanaryrecords. You can also check out our website at canaryrecords.com