We release music we think is special, made by friends & the like.
Paper Brigade's first release — and The Anniversary's first release too, shared with fellow Lawrence, Kansas band Proudentall.
An early Kansas vinyl release as the label found its footing in the indie music community.
Out of print
A two-song single closing out the label's first Kansas era.
Out of print
A four-song 7″ / digital EP — the first release of the label's reborn 2009 era.
Artwork by Michelle Blade · layout by Cortney Cassidy · covers printed at Pinball Publishing, Portland OR on recycled chipboard with soy inks.
Out of print
A five-song cassette tape, recorded as the band's profile began to climb.
A 3-song white vinyl 7″ (with download) and 4-song digital EP.
Layout by Cortney Cassidy · artwork by Noah Stitelman.
Still in print
A companion to Hooligans, recorded on the heels of those sessions — more of the melodic hooks and lush, layered production that is Neighbors' stock and trade.
Saharan Gazelle Boy is Darin Seal of Capybara, here with Sea Change (Sarah Handelman). Melodramatic synth-pop that conjures the love, loneliness and naïveté of teendom — the soundtrack for the shy, 1980s, pretty-but-doesn't-know-it high-school kid in all of us. A split release with our friends at Kansas City's The Record Machine.
A single from the Richmond, Virginia songwriter — written about the western coast of Japan. Produced by Justin Frye, mixed & mastered by Jonathan Schenke, with a guitar solo by Stephen Cooper of Cloud Becomes Your Hand.
The debut EP from Night Shop — the songwriting project of Justin Sullivan (The Babies, Kevin Morby's band). Paper Brigade handled the digital release; it also came out physically on 1234 Go! Records.
Paper Brigade started in the fall of 1998 in Kansas, founded by Matt Rubin. It has since followed him from Kansas to Los Angeles to San Francisco — and these days it's just an archive, based out of Upstate New York.
Since the '90s, Paper Brigade has been a tireless advocate and supporter of independent music and art. After getting its foothold in the indie music community in Kansas with vinyl releases by bands like The Anniversary, Reflector and Proudentall, the label began evolving — addressing the ever-shrinking gap between the art and music communities.
In the early 2000s, Paper Brigade refocused into a curatorial photography site, sharing work by photographers such as Bryan Sheffield, Ye Rin Mok, Robin Laananen, Cynthia Connolly, Noah Kalina, Pat Graham, Jeremy Weiss, Aaron Farley and Chrissy Piper. That whole chapter lives on in the Photo Community →
In the years since, Matt Rubin has worked at record labels — including Doghouse and Vagrant — photographed musicians, and helped build Virb (the music social-network and website builder), Squarespace, and Simplecast.
In 2009, Paper Brigade started back up — with the simple goal of releasing music we thought was special, made by friends and the like. One of those friends, Saintseneca, later signed to Anti- Records.