Every Memory Of Your Face

Hildegard “Jour 3”

The conventional wisdom now is that anyone under 40 is mortified by the very idea of talking on the phone, but this hasn’t stopped younger people from writing new songs about it, usually inviting someone to call them. This makes sense in that it’s a steady trope of pop songwriting going back many decades, there’s an undeniable romance to it, and that artists working in an audio medium would likely appreciate a communication medium that is also only audio. There’s also just a pleasing musicality to the word “telephone,” whereas any of the words commonly associated with video calls – Skype, Zoom, FaceTime – are all clunky corporate brands.

“Jour 3” is a romantic song about phone calls that includes a melodic phrase hinging on the word “telephone” right there in the first line. The subject matter feels fresh with the context of people mostly avoiding calls now – as Helena Deland suggests the idea of regular phone calls to maintain a regular connection while she’s apart from her partner her phrasing and half-whispered tone makes it sound as though she’s letting them in on a secret. Like, who knew you could just have an intimate conversation with just your voices over a private telephone line? Crazy, right? Deland sounds a little sleepy but also quite playful, while Ouri’s production captures a telephone aesthetic in the abstract with sounds so small and delicate that it’s like you need to press it to your ear to hear it all.

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