Hildegard of Bingen was a nun during the 12th century; a spiritualist, composer, and record keeper of her surroundings. She also happens to be the inspiration and eponym of Hildegard’s debut—a duo of Montreal creatives Helena Deland and Ouri. The album, released June 4th, is an exercise in otherworldly balance from the pair, exploring the tension and compliments of their “nocturnal” dance music and folk backgrounds, then combined into something completely unique.
Overall this album is dreamy. It shifts effortlessly between nonchalant vocals, anxiety inducing rhythms, and breathy hysterics. Each song is different but cohesive; the perfect mix of sensitive and sensual, with experimental percussion (exhaling as the beat?! Love) to keep your head bobbing. When that familiar cinematic drone hits at around the 3 minute mark in “Jour 2” there’s no going back, the tension never stops building. You feel weightless, grounded, unnerved. “Jour 8” is undoubtedly the climax, it makes you wish you were driving alone at night with the speakers at 100. In this more than others, the strings are noticeable, it feels a little more science fiction. The voice is pulled between pleading, frustration, anger, acceptance, and empowerment, before the words echo out into peaceful birdsong. A return to before.
What stood out most to me in this album is its cyclic sense of time. Believe it or not, it was written over the course of 8 days, with a track corresponding to each one, and–somehow–you can feel that while listening. A heartbeat pulses through each day, as if the music itself were learning more as it developed. The literal tension in the composition is enforced by the duality of each theme and its appearance as sound: is that an absentminded loving hum? Or a radiator that won’t turn off? Empty words vs full, acoustic vs electronic, monotony vs prophecy, now vs then, it’s all there. Each song explores that thought we all know a little too well, where do I end, and where does all this begin? As the artists put it: this music is the “tangling of two identities beyond the possibility of retreat.”
So if it’s not clear already, I love this album. “You can take yours and I’ll take mine”, but, to be clear, we’re both going to end up with a copy of the record in our collections.
