Brussels-based composer Valerie Leclercq has been recording as Half Asleep for the best part of twenty years. Although essentially Valerie’s brainchild, there is assistance from like-minded friends who allow her unique vision to be brought to fruition.
The Minute Hours | Les Heures Secondes has taken ten years to bring to life and considering how varied the offerings are, it was well worth the wait. Standing outside any recognised genre, with Valerie playing at least six instruments and there being a choir involved, this was always going to be an adventure and for forty-odd minutes we are really spoiled.
As the album opens, so we are introduced to Valerie’s voice; tremulous, weary and considered, it aches with age but the spacious piano and glorious unisex choir accompany her with austere beauty. It feels as though they are all locked away somewhere and have been for hundreds of years.
Where the classical guitar comes out, it brings a more pastoral element with bird song and a broad sweep of cello. Here Valerie’s voice is cool and deep like a pool in summer as wind weaves around the edges. The songs sound well-aged, as if they have been waiting for this particular moment in time to appear and delight. Staccato guitar causes much suspense and the spoken-word section really had me thinking of Mona Soyoc from Kas Product, but with a dusky blurt of bass clarinet in collaboration with other surprising textures. Valerie’s approach to writing is rather beguiling and each track certainly inhabits its own little universe. There is shruti box for inscrutability, then martial percussion and hunting horn to take us back a few centuries.It is hard to believe The Minute Hours | Les Heures Secondes is one person’s vision, such is the diversity, with some free clarinet abstraction leading onto a circular, repetitive piano piece. This is really pretty, but the siren like choral voices bring a hint of tension. The piano riff causes its own edge and they rise and fall, ebbing and flowing.
The ability to build and build like this is used to great effect, but then a countrified acoustic guitar jaunt is thrown in to tug at the heartstrings. It takes you somewhere emotionally, but gently guides rather than forcing. By the time the final piano and voice piece hits you with its studied melancholy, Valerie’s charms have worked their magic. I am not sure why it has taken so long for the album to come together but this was most definitely worth the wait and let’s hope it isn’t another ten years before the next instalment.-Mr Olivetti-
