Ephemera by Unsound: Bass, Drone, and Noise

Noise, Drone, and Bass, availed from Ephemera by Unsound

Synesthetic Thoughts has found its soulmate, and that is Ephemera, a perfume company produced by one of the world's leading electronic and experimental music festivals, Unsound.  This October, Ephemera released a trio of synesthetic compositions created by the Berlin-based perfumer Geza Schoen, who is known for his innovative series, Escentric Molecules, and who Michelyn Camen credits with creating "futuristic perfumery."   I first discovered this incredible company on Twitter, and knew it was love when they tweeted Brian Eno's essay, Scents and Sensibility:

"Perhaps our sense of this, the sense of belonging to a world held together by networks of ephemeral confidences (such as philosophies and stock markets) rather than permanent certainties, predisposes us to embrace the pleasures of our most primitive and unlangued sense. Being mystified doesn't frighten us as much as it used to. And the point for me is not to expect perfumery to take its place in some nice, reliable, rational world order, but to expect everything else to become like perfume." Brian Eno

What makes this project so incredible is that not only are these scents completely wearable as perfumes, but they were originally launched as a synesthetic art installation.  Each scent is based off of a sound piece by an influential musician within the genre that each perfume is named for.  The installation, which unites the scents, visuals, and music into one experience, first debuted at the Audio Visual Arts gallery during Unsound Festival New York.  The launch of the bottled perfumes coincides with a five-room installation at the National Museum of Krakow.  If you cannot visit these installations live, the music videos are available to watch in tangent with the perfumes via Ephemera's site.  Naturally, I rushed to sample these, and quickly received a package covered in adorable stamps from Ephemera's headquarters in Krakow, Poland.  Inside was a beautifully designed letter carefully instructing me on how to experience these scents together with their musical and visual counterparts.

Bass is composed for Steve Goodman (aka Kode9), whose describes his inspiration for the sounds:

"My piece ‘Vacuum Burn’ is based on the earliest sound/smell overlap that I can remember as a child. We had a dysfunctional vacuum cleaner that gave off a scent of burning dust, so whenever I hear the sound of hoover basslines, or those kind of crackling low frequency, fog-horn type bass drones, then I always get this burning smell which is not actually present, but rather is a virtual byproduct of this memory in which the smell and sound have become cross-associated."

Schoen translated this memory to a bold, sexy scent which "opens with woodsmoke and rum notes, developing into leather, mastic, and tea notes, and finishing with castoreum and moss."  It has a gothic feel reminiscent of a Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab oil, but a little cleaner, like the machine generated music it describes.  Of the three unisex scents, this one leans the most masculine and has, as Nero Profumo describes, "a remarkable human factor... something about its warmness, its animalic facets, its ability to feel alive."  The sounds for Bass, with accompanying visuals from MFO, can be seen here, and reflect the gritty, burning, warm, complex scent.

Drone, though definitely unisex, is perhaps the most feminine of the trio.  It is light and airy, but there is something unusually undermining about it.   It was made for Tim Hecker, who describes the tonal inspiration as:

"A speculative day-glow incense from rituals where long-form sound induces levitation.  The smell of music that has somehow gone on too long, but no one cares.
The confusion around odours possibly coming from an unwashed composer or a fully-washed cleric bathed in smoke."

It speaks to Schoen's artistry that this is exactly what I feel in Drone.  Aldehydes and air notes create the sense of levitation, developing to fir and juniper, with a base of patchouli, ambergris, and vetiver that subverts the composition.  Ambergris has a lift to it that complements the initial notes of aldehydes and air, keeping the scent in a playback loop.  The sounds for Drone, with accompanying visuals from MFO, can be seen here, and are especially dreamy.

Noise, the last of the trio, is the most abstract, androgynous, and of course, my personal favorite.  It is beautifully chaotic, described as a mix of "aldehydes, ozone, black pepper, saffron, and labdanum" that seem to bounce around the composition.  It was made for Ben Frost, whose inspiration for the sounds comes from a childhood memory of Ash Wednesday:

"Ash Wednesday: The creeping haze of burning trees, distant crackling, the muffled roar and siren, suffocating wind, heat and the physical noise - the looming spectre of Australian bushfire. We wear wool. Sheep don’t easily burn, you see.
My Grandfathers workshop: Soldering, electrical burns- the cycling whine of angle grinders and the showering sparks of an arc welder. The rust, the damp, the wood, the sweat.
Church on Sundays: Crackling radio-mic sermon, always cold, bluestone, frost, and frankincense.
The back of the hunting truck: moisture and insect drones, mould and gunpowder, empty shells and diesel in jerry cans.
The buzz of flies over sticky blood."

It's reminiscent of a CB I Hate Perfume scent, perhaps Burning Leaves.  It's strange, smoky, cool, complicated, and I just love it.  The sounds for Noise, with accompanying visuals from MFO, can be seen here and are wonderfully dark and industrial.

My response: "the sound of a comet" https://soundcloud.com/esaops/a-singing-comet

When Ephemera asked, "What kind of sounds would you like to smell in 2015?", I responded with, "the sound of a comet."  Now that would be a synesthetic challenge!  I can't wait to see what this fantastic company comes up with next, and look forward to future creations that blur the boundaries between perfume and fine art. 

Twin Peaks Perfume Consulation: Laura Palmer is CB I Hate Perfume's Burning Leaves

She told me so in a dream last night, and a giant took my signature rose gold Blood Milk Obsidian tomb ring.

CB I Hate Perfume's #305 Burning Leaves, from the CB Experience Series, is exactly what it sounds like.  It is the smell of leaves, burning.  CB's description states, "The smoke of burning maple leaves - pure & simple."  Lucky Scent expands on this description, but the two significant notes remain smoke and maple.  As it dries, the sugary maple note melds into the skin.  What begins as a fire fades into a trace of smoke on sweet skin.  But what strikes me, in the top notes and the fade down, is that smell of cold air- the negative space around this dramatic perfume.  It's like you can smell the bite in the breeze that carries the smoke away.

#305 Burning Leaves, available in perfume absolute and water perfume

It's so simple and so obvious that at first I questioned it.  But wouldn't Laura wear something sexier?

The tragedy of Laura Palmer's sexuality is that from a young age, she is abused and objectified by almost ever single man she knows, including the adults most responsible for her.  She is so many things to so many people- the daughter, the prom queen, the girlfriend, the playgirl, the sweetheart, the whore, the best friend, the victim- yet how many of these identities were hers alone?  The mystery of Laura Palmer was an attempt, after the fact, to sift through the secrets, layers, and identities in search of the real one.  Each facet is testified through the character who had projected that particular identity onto her, since she is no longer there to speak for herself.  But even in life, was she ever there to speak for herself?  Was she ever allowed to?

The other female characters on the show (save for maybe Nadine and the Log Lady) are very classic- curves, red lips, curled hair- conforming to a distinctive 50s via the 80s style that became Twin Peaks.  Yet Laura Palmer's style is nondescript, girl next door, morphing to adjust to the situations she finds herself in- at home, with boyfriends, at the Roadhouse, in the woods.  She doesn't have to manicure herself to be an object of desire, because objectification follows her no matter what she wears or does.  It feels as though her sex appeal was something hoisted onto her, rather than her own invention.

Laura Palmer worked at a department store perfume counter, and there perhaps she'd don Obsession to push sales.  At school maybe she'd wear Love's Baby Soft.  At the Roadhouse I could see her choosing Charlie.  A scent for each costume, each identity created by someone else for her to wear.  Yet alone among the Douglas firs, what scent inspires her character?

CB's Burning Leaves is an ode to the memory of raking leaves with his father and the lost innocence of childhood.  I don't think there could be a more perfect perfume to summarize Laura Palmer.

Through the darkness of futures past
The magician longs to see
One chants out between two worlds
Fire walk with me