Belgium’s Off Record has quietly become one of the most distinctive independent labels operating across the borders of jazz, avant-garde music, post-punk, electronics and experimental sound.
Founded by musician and producer Alain Lefebvre, the label has spent nearly two decades releasing music that rarely fits neatly into a single category, from contemporary improvisation and chamber jazz to underground Japanese projects and leftfield electronic records.
In the interview below, conducted by Ferdinand Dupuis-Panther, Lefebvre reflects on the origins of the label, his own path through the Belgian underground music scene, and the philosophy that continues to shape Off Record’s unusually broad catalogue.
Along the way, he discusses growing up around jazz through his father’s involvement in the Brussels scene, seeing artists like Wes Montgomery and Dizzy Gillespie as a child, performing with groups including Digital Dance, Kid Montana and Polyphonic Size, and why the label still operates almost entirely on instinct:
“If it sounds good and I like what I’m listening to and have the instant envy to release it, that’s all it takes.”
The conversation also touches on the changing meaning of jazz itself, the realities of running an independent label in an era of overwhelming digital output, and why Off Record continues to resist fixed genre definitions nearly twenty years after its launch.
Did you have a vocational training in the music production industry before you started Off Record? Or did you work in the music industry?
I was nursed in Jazz music because my father was listening to that daily. He founded the ‘Sweet and Hot’ Jazz club for aficionados in St-Josse in the 60ties, was a collaborator of Jazz festivals Comblain la tour and Jazz from Newport at Bozar so I saw my first gig at 4 ( Wes Montgomery) and later Dizzi Gillespie, Charlie Mingus etc.
When I reached 14, my school friends took me to see my first ‘rock’ band: Genesis… and because or thanks to the heavy smoke, I told myself that Rock was great!
Later, from 1981 to 1985, I worked at ‘La Strada’ music shop in Brussels and soon doing the export also for Himalaya / Crépuscule … .
Did or do you play an instrument?
I learned a bit to play the piano in my teens but being just 17 and after seeing Patti Smith in her first tour in 1976, I decided that I wanted to be part of a band!
Punk was there, I bought a bass, tried it for two days and switched to drums with my first school band: Pez (with some of the Snuls), then Thrills which whom I received my first pay doing the opening for Talking Heads at the 140.
After, I played drums with Digital Dance, Marine, Snowy Red, Kid Montana, Polyphonic Size and keys with Benjamin Lew for the Belgian bands and Tuxedo Moon, Anna Domino, Alan Rankine, Blaine Reininger, Winston Tong, The Durutti Column, Antena… for the ‘international’ bands.
I switched mainly to keyboards and electronics for all my recordings and drummed again in 2014 touring with Baby Fire.
What kind of music do you like?
Any genre really except techno and pop like today. I love dub, afrobeat, avant garde, folk… whatever as soon as it makes me happy or curious.
What was the intention of Off Record?
To try to make people from the world discover the music I believe merits to be discovered. To help bands that wouldn’t have the chance to be released…
Should the label name indicate the genres you release?
No, at the beginning I started another label called Stilll ! for one year but wasn’t free to release the music I liked so I went …Off!
When founding the label did you have in mind the competition with labels like De Werf and Igloo?
No, I didn’t know they existed and the main genre of the label was mostly avant garde and post rock… no jazz then…
In reference to Off Record what are the differences to Igloo and De Werf?
They release mostly Jazz, Off has 17 (18 in September) series’ with lots of different genres – avant-garde and alternative music from Japan, Jazz, Pierre Vervloesem, (un)classical, (un)spoken, African music… but all of them follow the Off aesthetics and philosophy.
Do you approach musicians you like to promote by releasing recordings or are the musicians those who get in touch with you? Do they have to finance the releases?
When I started, I just asked to musician friends I liked if they wanted to be part of the label. My space was also the place to listen to a lot of music and ask if they wanted to release on Off as it was easy to convince musicians to join the label.
At the beginning I was only releasing a few albums each year but it became quite quickly much more until today with one release per week. The Point is that you have to sustain an interest in the label as you have to battle with 120,000 new tracks each day. And also because since a long time now, I receive demos and proposals so I don’t have to look for new bands (which I still do occasionally when I bump into someone which gives me a thrill).
In the beginning I used to finance the recordings but now, most of the time, bands come to me with a finished product. I am in charge of the mastering for some, printing physical cds for some…etc … .
2027 will see the 20th anniversary of Off Record (strated in 2007).
What are the criteria for producing and releasing recordings?
None… if it sounds good and I like what I’m listening to and have the instant envy to release it, that’s all it takes.
Is the intention of Off Record to be a Belgian label editing mainly avant-garde music from Belgium or non-mainstream music in general?
Not really as I have released different music which are not avant-garde… The only music genres that are of limits for Off are techno, pop, R&B and pure classical music as there are much better labels to take care of those genres; plus, I don’t consider Off as a ‘Belgian’ label… it’s just a label which is based most of the time in Brussels.
Could you describe the music Off Record is editing? Please give some examples by naming bands and subgenres. Is the criteria Jazz and what is your understanding of Jazz?
For me Jazz embraces such varieties, especially today with micro jazz, punk jazz, ethnic jazz, chamber jazz, non jazz… The term jazz itself was a slang word not used for music first but became associated to some kind of black music in the beginning of the 20th century…
But it evolved in so many different ways that today you could release a band which is non jazz but plays ‘jazz’ in some sort. If you take some albums from big names like Miles Davis was it jazz all the time??? I believe the term as any genre is always what you want to do with it. I think that what I release in the ‘Ugoki’ series is 95% jazz as I understand it but some purists would probably insist that it’s not… Hahaha … .
Thanks to Ferdinand Dupuis-Panther who conducted this interview. You can discover more about Off Record via their website here or listen via Bandcamp here.