Noise fragrance notes
- aldehydes, ozone, black pepper, saffron, labdanum
Latest Reviews of Noise
Before beginning the review, it should be noted that Noise (and its sister compositions Bass and Drone) are compositions that are each inspired by pieces of synthesizer music from presumably top artists in the space. The music composition related to this specific perfume is by artist Ben Frost and can be found at http://vimeo.com/90983123.
Noise opens with a dash of soft black pepper before quickly transitioning to its heart. As the composition enters its early heart a highly synthetic, acrid metallic floral accord emerges and completely dominates the composition, obscuring all but the underlying harsh cedarwood in support. During the late dry-down the extremely irritating synthetic metallic floral accord mostly dissipates, leaving its remnants to meld with slightly sweet amber-infused rough leather to finish off the composition's development. Projection is excellent, as is longevity at well over 12 hours on skin.
The early heart phase of this composition is quite the eye opener, and not in a good way. The extremely strong and irritating synthetic metallic floral accord has "scrubber" written all over it. The sheer annoyance of how bad the primary heart accord smells cannot be emphasized enough, and had wearing the composition not been needed for this review it absolutely would have been "end game" right there. Alas, we soldier on... Luckily things get better about three hours in as the composition gradually moves to its late dry-down. At this point the worst of the floral metallics are spent, and while the composition never quite breaks free of their influence, the late dry-down is much more focused on the leather and amber aspects as they thankfully take center stage through the finish. There just is no getting around the harsh reality that "Noise" the composition is just that, loud, harsh, annoying noise lacking all the building blocks of good music that one's ears perk up to listen. This is the kind of noise you immediately search for ear plugs to block out, or in the case of the composition, a nose clip. The bottom line is the 80 Euro per 30ml bottle Noise proves the least appealing of the three Ephemera compositions with its horrendous smelling floral metallics, earning it a "horrible" rating of 1 star out of 5 and an extremely strong avoid recommendation unless you are a big fan of Ben Frost's music and are willing to subject your nose to all sorts of unending torture to have its fragrance companion piece.
Noise opens with a dash of soft black pepper before quickly transitioning to its heart. As the composition enters its early heart a highly synthetic, acrid metallic floral accord emerges and completely dominates the composition, obscuring all but the underlying harsh cedarwood in support. During the late dry-down the extremely irritating synthetic metallic floral accord mostly dissipates, leaving its remnants to meld with slightly sweet amber-infused rough leather to finish off the composition's development. Projection is excellent, as is longevity at well over 12 hours on skin.
The early heart phase of this composition is quite the eye opener, and not in a good way. The extremely strong and irritating synthetic metallic floral accord has "scrubber" written all over it. The sheer annoyance of how bad the primary heart accord smells cannot be emphasized enough, and had wearing the composition not been needed for this review it absolutely would have been "end game" right there. Alas, we soldier on... Luckily things get better about three hours in as the composition gradually moves to its late dry-down. At this point the worst of the floral metallics are spent, and while the composition never quite breaks free of their influence, the late dry-down is much more focused on the leather and amber aspects as they thankfully take center stage through the finish. There just is no getting around the harsh reality that "Noise" the composition is just that, loud, harsh, annoying noise lacking all the building blocks of good music that one's ears perk up to listen. This is the kind of noise you immediately search for ear plugs to block out, or in the case of the composition, a nose clip. The bottom line is the 80 Euro per 30ml bottle Noise proves the least appealing of the three Ephemera compositions with its horrendous smelling floral metallics, earning it a "horrible" rating of 1 star out of 5 and an extremely strong avoid recommendation unless you are a big fan of Ben Frost's music and are willing to subject your nose to all sorts of unending torture to have its fragrance companion piece.
Aldehydes and pepper from an spicy-bright duo, that soon sees a saffron added in the drydown, which is otherwise quite linear. Whiffs of smokiness and woodsy touches come and go.
The later stages have and ozonic undertone, with the labdanum in the background. This stage is somewhat generic and less vivid.
I get moderate sillage, very good projection and n excellent nine hours of longevity.
The start is simple, but easily the best and a not unoriginal part of this creation; the quality of the raw materials is high. Overall, the good performance is another strength and the unexciting later half constitutes the main drawback. Just, barely, a positive score. 3/5
The later stages have and ozonic undertone, with the labdanum in the background. This stage is somewhat generic and less vivid.
I get moderate sillage, very good projection and n excellent nine hours of longevity.
The start is simple, but easily the best and a not unoriginal part of this creation; the quality of the raw materials is high. Overall, the good performance is another strength and the unexciting later half constitutes the main drawback. Just, barely, a positive score. 3/5
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In Noise Geza Schoen has created a textured, striated, flickering perfume like a spectrogram of the crackle and roar of a bush fire. Smoke (both wild and liturgical), burnt electrical wiring, charred wood are its mode of expression and it is in the perfumer's gift to make them so appealing, chiefly due to a base of sweet cedary woodiness that will speak to those frightened of the avant garde concept.
A perfume of shifts and variation which nonetheless remains the same and itself, it is true to the idea of noise as a music/sound genre. Here among the burning, smoky whiteout of crackling wood and incense, one catches whiffs of saffron, handfuls of black pepper, hints of ganja. At times it can reach a choking intensity, and then again come round with warmth and sweetness.
To me it has an intensely sensual aspect like one of those extraordinary deep bass voices with which so few individuals are blessed. I don't know about you, but when I hear one of those my mind immediately goes into fornication mode. Compelling.
A perfume of shifts and variation which nonetheless remains the same and itself, it is true to the idea of noise as a music/sound genre. Here among the burning, smoky whiteout of crackling wood and incense, one catches whiffs of saffron, handfuls of black pepper, hints of ganja. At times it can reach a choking intensity, and then again come round with warmth and sweetness.
To me it has an intensely sensual aspect like one of those extraordinary deep bass voices with which so few individuals are blessed. I don't know about you, but when I hear one of those my mind immediately goes into fornication mode. Compelling.
Looking at Noise all the "smoky-scents' amateurs and fetish lods" can have finally their dirty-herbal simulacrum. Noise is indeed a greenish-steamy moonshiny experiment for Ephemera by Unsound which is (probably more than Drone) expression of the Geza Schoen's articulated and saturnine personality. I'm not enough informed about this "complex creative fellow" which seems condensing (in olfactive facets) in perfumery all his skills and visual pulsions about electronic music, ethnic culture and avant-garde urban artistic movements. We know that each Geza's olfactory experiment for Unsound (engaged in its Ephemera project) is the result of a creative process of translating sounds into scent notes (with this artistic installation taking place in a New Yorker Audio Visual Arts gallery located in East Village). Noise is by soon boisterously smoky-herbal, peppery and incensey in a way conjuring me soon more than vaguely Naomi Goodsir Bois d'Ascese as ideally combined with something more properly aldehydic-minimalistic and salty-herbal (yes, partially Escentric Molecules Kinski jumps on mind with its ozonic-dirty side but also several experiments from Humiecki&Graef and Comme des Garcons, as well as bitter-herbal arid twists a la Parfum d'Empire Corsica Furiosa, Rouge Bunny Rouge Tundra, Tauer Lonestar Memories, Les Nombres d'Or Cuir, Profvmum Roma Arso or Testa Maura Carticasi). The whole effect is anyway kind of experimental (and playing the game of contrasts) in a sort of new dimension conjugating the "almost indie and smoky-herbal assertive sticky perfume-wilderness" (the naturalistic side of the moon) with a sort of new post-industrial metropolitain pop olfactive art (urban, by street art inspired, minimalistic-apothecarian, salty-mineral and postmodern). Finally I get this arid-bonfire and kind of vaguely rooty-rocky side which seems in tune with the most daring experiments from houses a la Nu_be or Pekji. It seems to detect in here most of all burnt frankincense, ozonic/metallic/aldehydic molecules, black pepper for sure, hay, earthy notes, mastic, bitter herbs (bitter-resinous-peppery crudeness), leather and smooth-dense darkly green cistus-labdanum. I get different types of smokiness, namely burnt turpentine-plastic-Diavolina (kerosene-paraffin +woody/papery dust), supreme pine's smoky resin, carbonized woods and smokey frankincense, overall combined with grass, woodsy aromatic needles, musks, roots, earth, sort of enamel varnish and polish. Evolution is not laborious but I was expecting it yet by inhaling the top note's first sniff. I find the Noise's aroma quite irresistible and finally "smoothly smoky-creamy herbal"; labdanum provides quite smooth muskiness and pepper (initially pungent) seems kind of diluted in a pleasant silvan (musky-vegetal) amalgam. I get the leather as usual in the overmentioned smoky/herbal concoction's category, a smooth/burnt/piney final leather-trace not so distant from the one I get in Les Nombres d'Or Cuir or Profvmum Arso. Dry down is surprisingly soft, smoothly woody and wearable (after an initially harsh, tart, sticky, profoundly burnt and pungent stage) and I love the way in which all the turbulent elements take their quiet place in a finally tamed (and vaguely freshly/aromatic, aqueous vetiver-conjuring and damp-breezy) amalgam (kind of burnt mastic-dominant, peppery, freshly salty and faintly leathery). Florals? May be just hints of the amazing magnolia which I've admired more markedly in Drone (but in here the florals are subdued as well as the anyway yet present apothecarian vibe). Another peculiar juice from Geza Schoen; it could be appealing to many (looking for something chaotically different and vaguely esoteric) or turn out such like "over the top" (too salty smoky or sticky) but surely Noise will never appear to anybody irrelevant, mainstream or nonsense.
