BRIGADE MUSIC

Berlin based record label brigade music was founded in 1993 by Joe and J.X. and was setup as an underground label with a fake address, named originally Brigade der besten Qualität. Both friends wanted to take part in the sub-cultural life of their city and the first thing that came to mind was to publish a record with a straight political message. This idea resulted in the split LP with Friends of Barney and Slimy Venereal Diseases which was released in 1994.

The net profit from the record sale went towards the legal costs of a court proceeding against some antifascist activists. The record was released with a big booklet that provided background information about the court case. It was in that year that Botsch who was J.X.'s former band member in Crash Toys And The Botsch Boys and Mental Factory, died.

Brigade der besten Qualität 1994
The Brigade 1994: Joe and JX

As a result of his friend's death, J.X. started the second Brigade project together with Miriam and Das Nichts (another Ex Crash Toys And The Botsch Boys member) and created an LP in remembrance of Botsch. In 1995, the label released Botsch: Retrospektive 1986 - 1991 with recordings of Crash Toys And The Botsch Boys, Mental Factory and Botch.

Joe and J.X planned a third record for their label. They started working on another split-LP with yet another political intention. This time the political subject was to support the defendants and publishers of the illegal autonomous magazine radikal in their ongoing court proceeding. The record should have had the bands Anarchist Academy and Atary Teenage Riot, but unfortunately it was never realized, basically because of the sudden rejection of Atary Teenage Riot.

In 1996 Brigade der Besten Qualität stopped releasing music, partly because the two released albums and the never realized project were financially unsuccessful.

After a long interval, J.X. reconvened the work for the label in 2007 with some re-issues as well as first releases of old tape recordings of Crash Toys And The Botsch Boys, Mental Factory, Botsch, The Legendary Jordan Xenon Project and Tri-Meh. The label was now re-named into brigade music.
After these re-releases, brigade music faced the present and released music of three artists from the wide field of electronic music: Abreaktor from Düsseldorf, Actual Russian Brides from Sydney and Manekinekod from Athens, which brought the label worldwide attention. Unfortunately, however, the expected success was not achieved, especially because the CD releases were the wrong medium for electronic music. This led to another break of the label.

In 2021, JX makes another attempt with brigade music, this time in league with Krudebude, a DJ and mixtaper, and Muschka, a young Berlin musician and up-and-coming talent. The concept of brigade music is now completely non-commercial and non-profit oriented. Muschka, for example, donates all proceeds from her first EP FFP2 to ProAsyl. Furthermore there is a DJ and Mixtaper platform, where all hobby and non-commercial DJanes and DJs are invited to present their sets.
We remain optimistic and know: The future is unwritten...

Brigade
The Brigade 1995: JX, Miriam and Das Nichts (Foto: cKundenschall)
Brigade 2021
The Brigade 2021: Muschka, KrudEbudE and JX

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