Chicane
Jacomo (1971)

The dramatic aldehydic tenor greets my nose in Chicane's first act. I immediately can tell it is baroque, in stark contrast to the ultra-modern cube that holds it, like entering an imposing and intriguing brutalist-style performance hall to watch Monteverdi's L'Orfeo. The timbre is woodwind-reeds and plangent strings. It's all bright lights, satin petals, and peach lactone; a trickery ("chicanery") that tames wild animals and stills beating hearts. The jasmine path is damp and fertile, and the blazing sun is evaporating the dew.

The shift is gradual, nary a seem to be detected, until we find Chicane in the darker shadows and a less-manicured patch is brought into relief. The undergrowth is the underworld, and a smoky vetiver douses the light and green turns from tint to shade. The metallic lustre and chilly-early-spring bite softens into a moss that knows its no mere babe in the woods. This resolve is as if Orpheus succeeded in taking Eurydice back to earth, and as the last traces fade, I look back at the Chicane cube and look forward to another performance.

There's a darkness to Chicane that's like Silences - also by Jacomo - which came several years later, and which perhaps it was thought, would supersede Chicane and make it surplus to requirements.
Wrong.
Chicane is a crisp aldehyde bouquet of dewy rose, sweet jasmine and fruity muguet. It's in the line of No5 - of course - but it has its own, clear, soprano voice, a pure shining bell that rings out over the darkness;
which is ideal for today, Michealmas day, when St Michael slew the Dragon with his radiant sword: a perfume retelling of the old archetypal story of Overcoming the Monster.

Finding no reviews at all for Jacomo's Chicane, I sought a sample or bottle for purchase. This one is long gone, so samples are not available and full bottles are rare (and priced accordingly). I managed to score a micro-mini for testing purposes.There is not a lot of info available on this scent, even on Jacomo's website. The Perfume Intelligence website describes it thus: "A floral aldehyde edt with fruity top notes, heart notes of jasmine, ylang-ylang and carnation on base notes of vetiver, sandalwood, Tonka bean and musk."I feel confident that my tiny bottle has shifted a bit with age and doesn't represent the perfume I would have experienced with a new bottle still in production. Nonetheless, it's a pleasant salty floral, fairly typical for its time. There's a touch of the "hairspray" note I find in some aldehyde scents. (Maybe that's the smell of aldehydes that have gone off with age?) The scent is very dry and green, with no detectible fruits in the top but a hint of sweetness in the base. The opening reminds me of Ma Griffe. The floral heart veers off towards Detchema. The dry-down is clean and slightly grassy. Sillage and longevity are minimal, which I expected from this EDT of unknown age.Nice, but probably not worth the search and cost unless you loved it from before. There are plenty of scents still in production that give a similar effect, and Jacomo has better offerings than this one.