Targa
Blackbird (2015)

Targa feels terrifyingly crude by design. The phenolic levels are dialed up to 11, and the result is what I would imagine Mad Max to smell like. The first half hour feels like mounds of lava-hot asphalt, fires radiating out of oil drums, acrid and charred remains of a post-apocalyptic barbecue. It does mercifully settle after a while into a somewhat wearable smoky wood scent.

It smells like extremely low air quality, like I actually shouldn't be inhaling this. I am of the humble belief that smoky accords in perfume should accent, not dominate. Very few perfumers have achieved a truly excellent smoky fragrance—it's not easy. This perfumer falls short of such an achievement.

By all accounts, this is the same fragrance as the Zola Jesus collaboration scent--that one was called Taiga, and I gather they changed the name to Targa when that collaboration ended.

This is pitch black, a tar-soaked stew of dark woods, smoke, cypriol, incense, resins and spices. In overall tonality, it reminds me of things like Lampblack or even CdG Black, though this feels a bit harder edged, more aggressively smoky and unfriendly. Compared to some of the woodsier smoke scents out there (e.g., Bois d'Ascese), this has more of an industrial feel. Think urban dystopia: acid rain on a black leather jacket, combat boots stomping iridescent puddles. Certainly not pretty, but nicely atmospheric if you're in the right mood.