Created in 1978, the IGLOO label emerged from the intense cultural effervescence of the late 1970s, which saw the emergence of networks, associations, alternative projects and actors who have shaped much of cultural life to this day and enabled jazz music, among other things, to develop as it has done in Belgium.
Promoting diversity, enabling more marginal musical expressions to be heard and supported in a musical context threatened by standardisation.
Although the Igloo label initially focused on productions outside the mainstream music market – sound poetry, improvised music, etc. – its merger with the LDH label in the early 1980s quickly led to its first jazz productions, and not the least: Chet Baker, Philip Catherine, Jacques Pelzer, Michel Herr, Steve Houben and Charles Loos, to name but a few, all contributed to Igloo's reputation not only in Belgium but also internationally, enabling it to develop its primary ambition: to become a platform for future talent.
The label initially brought to prominence the generation of Nathalie Loriers, Eric Legnini, Ivan Paduart and Manuel Hermia, followed by Mélanie de Biasio, Greg Houben, Pascal Mohy and many others, and more recently artists such as Igor Gehenot, Antoine Pierre and Jean-Paul Estiévenart, who are part of the new wave of jazz.
Chet Baker, Philip Catherine, Jacques Pelzer, Michel Herr, Steve Houben and Charles Loos... so many names that have contributed to Igloo's reputation.
The label's philosophy has always been to promote diversity, allowing more marginal musical expressions to be heard and supported in a musical context threatened by uniformity. Although jazz has become its main focus, the label has remained open to more "unclassifiable" creations by developing its "Igloo+" collection. It also diversified in the late 1990s by incorporating projects resulting from cultural encounters under the banner "Igloo Mondo". Finally, French chanson continues to play an important role: following the Franc'Amour label's productions in the 1980s (Maurane, Pascal Charpentier, Claude Semal, Dunker), Igloo developed the "Factice" label dedicated to more contemporary French-language music (Sacha Toorop, Mochélan, Mathias Bressan, Karim Gharbi, etc.).
