Hide&Seek is a band that has long been in the shadows. Formed in 1993 by the tri-national couple of Franco-Swiss Pierre-Yves Lebeau and his Dutch wife Liesbeth Houdjik, the band released several albums between 2000 and 2011, noted for their gentle, melancholy music inspired by both coldwave and Dutch pop, enlivened by the duo's ethereal vocals. All this linked Hide&Seek to the heavenly voices/ethereal wave scene, which we're missing a bit these days. So it was a pleasant surprise to see the duo return last year with a fifth album: A Spring Idyl, released out of season at the end of December 2023.
The fact that the title A Spring Idyl is adapted from Elizabeth Magie's poem of the same name makes it all the more intriguing: this American author, borned in 1866, is best known today for having invented the board game The Landlord's Game, the forerunner of Monopoly, which she intended to denounce monopolies in land ownership - and after all, Pierre-Yves Lebeau knows a thing or two about board games!
Hide&Seek have always stood out for their music, which is both dark and light, their simple, almost childlike melodies, and the fragility of the couple's vocals, which seem to be constantly balancing on the edge of a rift; while the music is delicate, sadness and anxiety are never far away, underlining the beauty and hope all the more. We love the duo for this, for their ability to sweep us off our feet with a few subtly delivered touches, refreshing in a heavenly voices scene that is often serious and sometimes too insistent. It's something we're delighted to find again on A Spring Idyl: once again, Hide&Seek take us gently into their airy melodies and emotionally-charged vocals, with a play on mid-tones reminiscent of Collection d'Arnell-Andréa. Hide&Seek's new album differs from its predecessor Clouds Are Beautiful, however, in that it makes greater use of electronics, which generally dominate the melodies. Yet Hide&Seek have not lost the acoustic touch that has always characterised them, and the album even includes contributions from the flute played by François Porte, cymbals (Olivier Vitry) and violin (Luc Lebeau), as well as Pierre-Yves Lebeau's usual guitar.
This new look is a success. The cold ambiants and haunting loops add a gentle, poignant melancholy to which the voices of Pierre-Yves Lebeau and Liesbeth Houdjik respond or unite, and we vibrate with them. We're particularly drawn to the haunting anxiety of Missing Boy, with its almost industrial rhythms and sounds, to Liesbeth's sultry vocals on the very pop Sindi Sney So, to the contemplation of the title track A Spring Idyl or Un siècle de lumière, but to be honest, almost very song has is identity which make us love her. The only one that doesn't really convince us is the imperious Believe in Me, whose sounds seem a little too routine, but it's the shortest track on the album, almost a transition. A Spring Idyl is an album full of the kind of charm we'd like to hear more of.
