Half Asleep is created during fall 2002, near Brussels. Young Belgian girl Valérie Leclercq has then for main purpose to fight the boredom of the dusky last months of the year (those ending in « ber »). To achieve this, a heated room, a coupe of instruments - guitar, piano -, 2 microphones and lots of time spent looking for music notes and words. The result is a demo record which seduces micro-label Another Record. This allows a first micro-release : the 8-track E.P « Palms and Plums ». Also linked to Belgian label Matamore recordings (Raymondo, Tom Sweetlove, V.O), Valérie consequently presents her musical project on stage. The live version of half asleep - solo project - becomes a duo : Oriane Leclercq backs her sister on drums, vocals, guitar or even bass.
In 2003, humble French structure Hinah releases the second CD-R record by half asleep, « Just before we learned to swim », which will discreetly sell between Paris and Brussels, and reach even further horizons. April 2004, Valérie and Oriane start touring, as guests of their friends Tom Sweetlove's tour and for several delightful scattered dates with artist Colleen. During the summer of 2004 half asleep starts recording a third album with the fine team of label Unique Records (Angil, A place for parks, Electrophönvintage, Lunt, ...). Forsaking here her very personal and fumbling « home recording » technique on MD, Valérie encounters for this new album the support of Gilles Deles (audio director of Angil, Melatonine, Moonman, Dana Hilliot & friends, Lunt ...) who will suggest new ways for « home recording ».
On a Swedish black piano Valérie draws the skeletons of her new compositions, between sombre pop and intimate folk writing... A low and cloudy voice, slow and stretched on sublime melancholic melodies, fascinating, addictive. A open piano, long and slow chords, eruptions, whole pictures, shapes evolving inside a roughly pixelized black and white, photographs... Dark ambiances, like a pulsating heart, a respiration. Here we come close to the best pieces of Low or Tara Jane O'Neil for the atmospheric ambiance, and the vocal intonations may recall Kate Wright (Movietone) or Julie Doiron. Some music for people who can't get sleep, lovers of dreams awake and melancholic dusks. Also note that this record is the first one to be released in France and under the free licence of Creative Commons which, unlike Copyrights, allows copying and broadcasting on the web. Unique Records, militant label, has definitely chosen to support free music in the future.
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