Deaf Sparrow

Deaf Sparrow originally started as a media criticism site in 2007, owned by the current label head of Caligari Records, Hansel Merchor. One of his writers, Stanley Stepanic, a professor at the University of Virginia, first started writing freelance for the website. Merchor was receiving noise releases for musical genres with which he had no experience, so Stepanic started writing reviews to cover these areas in 2010. Merchor eventually decided to start his own tape label, mentioned above, and planned on ending Deaf Sparrow in 2015, but Stepanic took full control of the site with plans on expanding. After updating the site and building a larger fanbase, he then ended Mind Flare Media, his own record label, combining music publishing with Deaf Sparrow in the same year, in addition to future plans of limited, hardback publications. Deaf Sparrow now functions as a media criticism site as well as label and publisher.