Nuit Câline à la Villa Mon Rêve ‎– Juillet 1977 (1977, LP, Belgium)

Side A
1. "Podferdeck, quelle drache!" (6.06)
2. La chaleur de l'été (3.43)
3. Le coeur en morceaux (3.50)
4. Mardi, 14h30 (10.45)
Side B
5. La route (3.20)
6. Les Lundis d'Hortense (4.05)
7. La princesse est salariée (3.42)
8. Sauve qui peut, tout va bien dans nos bureaux (3.32)
9. Contravention (4.36)
10. Maison closes (4.50)

Musicians
Éric Chale / electric and acoustic guitars, vocals
Alex Furnelle / bass guitar
Jeannot Gillis / violin, trumpet, tuba, trombone
Michel Moers / acoustic guitar, electric guitars, vocals
Pierre Narcisse / drums, percussion
Ilona Chale / vocals
Pierre Coulon / flute
Jean-Paul Laurent / flute
Charles Loos / electric piano, piano
Denis van Hecke / cello
Christophe Vinck / vocals
Daniel Leon / recording
Michel Dayez / secretary of Lundis d'Hortense, who left traces of his being in NCVMR, for which we thank him.


Nuit Câline à la Villa Mon Rêve is one of these projects that simply happen and leave their marks. A group of Belgian musicians around guitarist/cellist Michel Dayez (consisting of Dayez, Eric Chale, Jeannot Gillis and Michel Moers) thought it would be nice to create a work of music that involved musicians from classical, folk and chanson background. The idea was to create a musical mix of those genres, that covered different moods and was more sophisticated than the typical verse-chorus-bridge structure. The four were part of a movement that tried to set up what they called a "musician syndicate for alternative music", which is still in existence under the name "Les Lundis d'Hortense". Through this movement, they had connections to various musicians like Charles Loos, Denis van Hecke and Alexandre Furnelle and drummer/percussionist Pierre Narcisse.

In July 1977 the group consisted of 13 people in total, and they recorded a set of very well composed tracks, according to Michel Moers with "no money and too many efforts". The main theme was "not love, many people already did, and still do that, very well". Instead, the focus was on the feelings those involved had about themselves and the world around them - but in a 'poetic' and humorous way. Where some thought that the result was influenced by smoking marijuana, the band indicates that they did not need that. Regardless, the songs deal with working in a boring office ('Sauve qui peut, tout va bien dans nos bureaux'), going to the dentist, standing in the Belgian rain or simply facing the difficulty of making decisions.
The music is an intricate mixture of the styles already mentioned - hints of Brel, but also of Julverne, which' line up included a number of the Nuit Câline members. In many places, the music is very folk like, with violins, acoustic guitars and choruses, at other times the instrumental parts clearly show influences of the jazz that later took the upper hand in Les Lundis d'Hortense.

With the recordings done, the album needed to be mixed in order to be able to release it. This was done illegally, in a studio of national radio and on equipment that was not intended for this purpose. The result is the album we have now, and which the band considers of too poor sound quality to re-release on CD. Michel Moers indicated in his input for this short biography that although the ideas of the band were nice, their playing did not do full justice to them.

After recording the album, the group disbanded and each went their way - showing up in bands like Universe Zero and Julverne. People like Charles Loos and Denis van Hecke are still active in Les Lundis d'Hortense related projects. Jeannot Gillis recently worked on some projects for film music, including Nanook. Drummer/percussionist Pierre Narcisse suffered a stroke in early 2007 and is no longer able to perform. Michel Moers formed Telex, together with Marc Moulin and Dan Lacksman. Although they claimed ""the best compliment anybody could pay us is that our music is disposable - that's what all music should be" they went on to create six albums. In 1980, they ended up frustrated at the Eurovision Song Contest, because they set out to loose the contest and still managed to score 1 (one!) point.

Nuit Câline à la Villa mon Rêve is a wonderful one time event, with a lot of untold stories behind it. (progarchives)