I am not a nose. But my nose isn’t bad either. And so when trying Vetiver Java by Perris Monte Carlo, a brand I am quite drawn to overall for its plush, generous take on individual notes (the jasmine, mimosa, lavender, are all great – a convincing, hybrid take on classicism and the contemporary, though I am not entirely sure I like the bottles), I realized that the Javan vetiver at the heart of this composition is precisely the same as the one I am currently using in remixing an old bottle of Monsieur De Givenchy (1959), an original vintage edition I found recently, a little drab and bland now, sitting with sloped shoulders at the back of the barbershop, its best days far behind it, but which is perking up nicely with the big dollops of a Japanese brand of imported Indonesian vetiver oil I have added – along with a fine quality lemon that is bringing out the verbena and lemon leaf aspects of this suave, aromatic Lazarus-like enough for me to decide that this will be probably be one of the perfumes I will be wearing for the upcoming Christmas season and New Year.
The only reason I mention my (admittedly) eccentric and rabid adulterations – today I am also getting a different vetiver oil today to add to my Serge Lutens Vetiver Oriental, which is just….boring – is that this oil, a rather rough and beardy vetiver which is not particularly refined, is actually very cheap. Just a handful of dollars. So if this is the main component of Vetiver Java (which it is), it does feel like a bit of a rip off. At $225 for 100ml (in niche terms only mid-brow, but still not a cheapie), my first impression of this was that there was nothing but alcohol and essential oil, unadorned.
(A friend sent me a link to an interesting podcast, the other day, incidentally, about how much the ingredients in perfume really cost, and whether lovers of any particular perfume, when financially pressed, would ever go for a copycat/dupe : I would like to know your thoughts on the subject; I am too pretentious and aesthetically conscious to fill my shelves with fakes with dumb names in ugly bottles personally but it certainly did all make me think).
Creator of Vetiver Java, Gian Luca Perris – the brand uses different perfumers for its creations, including Jean Claude Ellena for the superlative florals mentioned above – describes the selection of this particular vetiver note as follows:
«I have been smelling different qualities of vetiver – Haiti, Bourbon – with bold and intense scents, but too clean, transparent, linear. Then, I lingered over a vetiver from the island of Java, less used in perfumery, which I found intriguing, pungent, smoky, burned-like, with surprising floral, green and spicy nuances. It wasn’t love at first sight, but at the end the arrogance of its intensity conquered me.»
I like the idea of an ‘arrogant’ essential oil, and agree that there is something brusque, but magnetic in this specific varietal that works, eventually, when you get used to it (for me anyway – I have quite a lot of it, currently, two weeks in, on my winter coats alongside vintage Chanel No 19, sighing each time I walk by them or put them on). If you are not going to give me exquisite orchestration in a perfume then I am also, in general, at least drawn to fragrances that highlight one note and do it well; Aurelien Guichard’s Matiere Premiere range manages this expertly in scents such as Neroli Oranger and Encens Suave; you can smell the quality of the essences, they speak for themselves (they sing), but they are also arranged and blended in a way that is cleverly synergistic. For me, there should, with a luxury end perfume, never be the sense that I could just do this at home ; yes, there are tinkerings of citrus, here, in Vetiver Java, a base musk, and what I refer to personally with horror as ‘the endocrine’: a sour, industrial note that is way too prominent in many other famous vetivers (and perfumes in general these days) such as Chanel Sycomore, which I have decided, definitively, I now don’t like (I was on a bit of a spree on Wednesday evening, going around everywhere, spraying Vetiver Extraordinaire by Malle in copious amounts- again, ‘meh‘ – Hermes Vetiver Tonka – ditto, though I have it and sometimes it is perfect for the nutty coumarinic blanket of the base (and which you definitely couldn’t do by yourself).
Trying other vetiver centered scents while I was at it as well, Dipytque Vetyverio – blah; for lightweights!! – Bruno Jovanovic’s ‘Mon Vetiver’ for Essential Parfums – fresh, pleasant, but not for me, with vetiver perfumes it can sometimes feel as if can never get exactly what I want. Though Nose Shop in Yokohama, where I was voraciously sniffing, do carry the always undervalued collection by Patricia Nicolai, ( and which I want to get to know better), they unfortunately don’t feature her strange, vegetal caraway floral Vetyver, which we used to have a bottle of but used up, and which I always thought was alluring in that unique transformationally-compressed-into-dry,hermetic mist way that her perfumes often have. Kerzon’s intriguing and inexpensive aquatic patchouli vetiver Isle St Louis keeps drawing and then repelling me with its flashy interior contrasts but at least it is challenging and original, unexpected (like Samuel Gravan’s Vetiver Absolute, another more interesting patchouli vetiver, sour and bewitching and quietly psychological that I got through a whole bottle of in England over the summer).
I don’t know: perhaps I am just too difficult to please.
Strangely, a week previous to attending the annual purification ceremony of the Ji-shu sect of Pure Land Buddhism with our friends, Yukiro and Ken, Neil had, unwittingly, whilst exploring some back streets near his workplace, stumbled upon Shojokoji, the temple in which this ritual was to take place. Shojokoji is an imposing institution and Neil was surprised that after twenty odd years of working in Fujisawa, he had not come across it before. But Japan can be like that.
Ken had long been curious about this ceremony because the beliefs of the Ji-shu (‘Time Sect’) are based on the teachings of Ippen Shojin (1234-1289), a charismatic figure, whose ecstatic nembutsu dance gained him thousands of adherents in thirteenth-century Japan. And so, excited by the prospect of a Buddhist ritual performed by (as I rather glibly imagined it) dancing-Dervish-like monks, we gathered on a Sunday evening in late November to witness the spectacle.
Ippen travelled around Japan on foot, embracing poverty and spreading his doctrine, much as you might expect of the founder of a Buddhist sect. His brand of Buddhism appealed to ordinary people because it promised enlightenment based on chanting the name of Amitabha, the primary Buddha of the sect, and dancing – other Buddhist practices were deemed unnecessary and fruitless. The sect would provide a purified space (hence Pure Land) where anyone could reach enlightenment. Ken explained this sardonically in the intermission: to get to paradise all you needed to do was a nembutsu dance – “ONLY that”
Unfortunately, Ken and Yukiro were delayed by thirty minutes owing to a suicide on the train line – sad to say, there have been many delays caused by suicides of late – and so we bided our time in a cafe on the top floor of Saikaya department store, drinking beer and wolfing down a typically retro plate of tamago sando (egg mayonnaise sandwiches) – immaculately manicured white bread triangles with a jarringly strong margarine taste to them, certainly fitting in with the glassed off 80s-ness of the restaurant floor of Saikaya. And I can definitely say that margarine tastes just as awful now as it did back then.
Meeting Yukiro and Ken at the station gates we grabbed a taxi to the temple, arriving several minutes late for the ceremony which had already begun. A monk accompanied us to the main hall and we were surprised by the extent of the temple grounds.
After removing our shoes and placing them in the plastic bags provided, we were ushered into the ceremonial space, a rather large and chilly hall.
About two hundred people were seated on tiny folding chairs placed on the tatami, and they were observing the ceremony in absolute silence. The inner sanctum was occupied by around twenty monks chanting sutra, engaged in various ritual formations. Scrolls were hung up behind them and there were many lanterns and candles. Around the perimeter of the sanctum were seats for the sponsors who were also required to participate in various ways during the ceremony, including at one point moving items from one plate to another with chopsticks.
I only observed one female adherent involved in the ceremony itself and she was among those seated around the edge. We weren’t allowed to take pictures of the ceremony but we did get a few images of the ceremonial space afterwards when everything had been tidied away:
At first, we remained standing in the entrance area as we had to wait for Neil, who insisted on taking a trip to the outside toilet to placate his bladder in advance of an indeterminately lengthy performance. It would have been too disruptive to use the inside toilet. As an inveterate claustrophobe, he dislikes the possibility of being seated in the middle of a row rather than on an aisle seat and so arriving late to crowded events provides him with ample cause for panic. After some fussing over how to seat us noisy late-comers, and Neil fidgeting over where to sit, we settled down into our row near the front of one of the banks of low seats placed on the tatami mats.
The air, dry from all the burning of candles and incense – a characteristically serene but austere kyara blend – made me cough initially, which further contributed to my feeling of being a bothersome intruder. The ceremony, however, was calming and the close harmonies of the chanted sutra were riveting. Occasionally a younger monk would emerge from his line and do a series of movements going from kneeling to standing prayer position several times, which is the modern version of the sect’s dance we presumed, admittedly not as ecstatic as we’d hoped. (Might you move a little faster and maybe spin around a bitjust for us?)
I could tell Yukiro, who has a predilection for fiery and passionate performances, was dying a death. And half an hour in Neil passed a note along saying ‘I can’t stay beyond 8’ which was a good thirty minutes away. Fortunately, there was an intermission where everyone queued up to buy souvenir manju – rice flour dumplings filled with sweet chestnut paste which were still warm, presumably from having just been steamed. There was a sigh of anticipation and a palpable delight amongst the crowd as the boxes of manju were fished out and dished out. The shared enjoyment of simple pleasures here can be very grounding. One of my favourite things is a postcard by one of my students which I keep on my desk. The assignment was to make a ‘postcard for peace’ and this is what she came up with:
Eat together! Stop lobbing bombs, sit down and share some food.
Returning to the temple, the second part of the ceremony was rather moving, although unfortunately it was preluded with a long explanatory talk by one of the head monks which felt like purgatory. Again I could sense Yukiro and Neil growing impatient.
The climax of the ritual essentially involved a gradual extinguishing of all the lamps and candles until we were in total darkness. No exit signs or devices or corridor lights to provide even a glimmer of light. That was quite extraordinary – for how often in modern life do you experience a *t o t a l* blackout? And in a public ceremony in our health and safety-conscious era? For me personally, never. Cinema can come close to it but there is always some device or exit sign in view. It was disconcertingly beautiful and almost felt like being weightless ,
suspended
in space. . . . . . .
Then a monk who had climbed to the top of a small structure next to us suddenly flickered some kind of light and the spell of complete blackness was broken. Candles and lamps were gradually relit and the ceremony drew to a (relatively) rapid conclusion with invigorated chants and more of the standing sitting dance. We’d come back from the other side.
The finale was accompanied by a rather grim aroma – not unlike the burned meat fat you smell in yakitori restaurants; a decidedly bitter aftertaste. Not knowing anything about the practices of the sect, I can’t really say if this was intentional or not. (Neil said that this was the result of using flaming incense sticks to relight the candles and indeed there are times when even the incense sticks in our kitchen smell almost bacon-like from being inappropriately burned. )The ceremony had a satisfying combination of elements with a pleasurable dip into void. We queued to receive a piece of paper with the nembutsu chant printed on it and pondered the bizarre ritual we’d just observed. We all agreed the blackout was rather special and very memorable.
And yet owing to my limitations, I always have ambivalent feelings about organised religion. Watching this, it did strike me how absurdly random religious practices are. I must qualify that statement, not random in the spontaneous sense, as everything doubtless has a very specific symbolism and is completely meaningful in its context, carefully ordered and evolved over centuries. Understandable on multiple levels as fulfilling the needs of humans for creating meaning to fill the void, bringing people together in peace and prayer, confronting death, and satisfying our appetite for ritual.
At the same time, if the earth and everything on it were to go up in smoke tomorrow, none of this would ever happen again in exactly the same way; well, the laws of physics and of probability may disagree with this hypothesis, and future species of what? aliens? alternative life forms? may come up with something not entirely dissimilar, but essentially, it’s an elaborate iteration of a complex set of circumstances which are probably impossible to replicate…. and of course the same could be said of all of human culture. Each belief system is just another construct, when all is said and done. And that is why I prefer art to religion – you get to play with your own systems of meaning, selfishly and indulgently, rather than slavishly following those of others.
So religion to me is both absolutely sensical and nonsensical.
Of course, pragmatically speaking, anything that prevents human beings from ripping each other to shreds (and that includes religion, the law, dancing, music, communal traditions, breaking bread et cetera) has got to be good.
It was a relief to get some night air and we headed into town for Korean food.
Are you wondering what became of Ippen, the wandering dancing monk, who, as it turns out, was something of an art lover? Well, his sect enjoyed considerable popularity in his lifetime, but after his death, as is often the case in such matters, he had his writings burned and then many of his followers jumped off a cliff in the hope of being reborn with him. The extremity of these acts resulted in a sharp decline in popularity of the sect, which was evidently eschewed by the establishment and the populace, who preferred hassle-free enlightenment with a bit of ecstatic dancing thrown in, to lemming-like self-immolation. After all, there’s only so much crap you can take.
Some of his followers had kept copies of his writings and established the practices of the group but Ji-shu remains to this day a minor sect of Pure Land Buddhism.
I have no idea what this perfume smells like, other than that it is supposedly a musky, woody carnation, very emblematic of its era.
What gorgeous design though !
I am, as you have probably guessed, back at the Man Ray exhibition at the Hayama Museum Of Art, where I managed to furtively take this picture, from behind, of the coveted Schiaparelli Sleeping bottle; as well as the ultra-rare Succes Fou, in its current Japanese museum context (I could not get any closer : the ladies were eyeing me like ravens).
Still, it gives you an idea anyway : art, culture, and perfume all feeding off each other at a particular moment in time.
It is such a beautiful day.
In a year of extremes, one of the main takeaways I have personally is D and I’s deep realization – after considerable strife post pandemic abnormality – that socially we really are quite different. We knew this already, of course, but it has really come to a climactic head : an actual crisis. Whereas he is much more socially open, far less neurotic, I am much more intense as a person and must privately regroup; in my job I have to be witty and charming all day long and thus feel no need whatsoever to entertain and be continuously ‘light -hearted ‘ in my private time, meaning that several times in 2022, now that things have been ‘opening up’, we have been at serious loggerheads over what to do on a number of particular occasions (I did not even entertain the idea of going to the party at Toyoko’s studio in Sendagaya tonight for example – he is there having a ball by himself, which is how it should be ) : and it was precisely this clarity of mutual understanding that was desperately needed: it was necessary to reach some kind of compromise, or it was possible that we were going to go under. I am not saying I would be a po-faced mummy if you and I were to spend time together; I do have a personality, and I do like the odd get together here and there, for sure, but overall, I have to say that in general, joking around and smiling like an asshole for hours on end only has so much attraction and appeal for me: I think forced hilarity is one of the very worst things imaginable for someone like myself (and humanity in general), and I would literally rather just sit morosely – or rather, quite happily – staring at a blank wall than have to laugh when there is no actual laughter, which, to someone like me, is such an unbearable burden on the soul (there was an interesting comment I read somewhere on the Internet the other day about ‘the false cheer and heavily synthetic inspiration of so much online life’, which really struck a chord with me, and which is one reason why The Black Narcissus is the way that it is, and why I vastly prefer, for the traditional end of year joshing that is the big group bonenkai party in Japan, a rather irregular one on one, when amusement and quipping and hahahahhhggh gufffaggughn is not a requirement, and where I can just spout forth, listen to my friend’s stories, respond naturally not worrying about being judged, in this gorgeous, sparkling place that is situated by the sea
——— and just generally damned be my natural self.
From this perspective, today’s end of year catch up with Yoko – who I only get to see every once in a while – talking over wine on the terrace, then drowsing through the beautiful and eclectic art of the brilliant Man Ray, as well as ogling priceless Lucien Lelong and Schiaparelli perfume bottles, has been a lovely respite from the enforced cheerfulness of the every day routine. So much space here: space to actually (re)connect : most definitely a ‘wild success.’
If the word ‘ambivalence’ were to be stamped on one perfume – one that I both really like and strangely dislike simultaneously – it might be the original Eau De Givenchy.
There is nothing else like it. Although officially categorized as a fresh floral with fruit facets, for me, whenever I smelled it – quite frequently, as a day to day basis on a couple of girls I knew who wore it back when I was seventeen – to me it always smelled like a marine, before that was even a category. Co-author Daniel Moliere ( the other perfumer was Daniel Hoffman) clearly had a proclivity for the wet and watery, creating the intriguing aquatic hyacinth Huis Clos for Diptyque in 2003 (as well as the horrifying fresh watermelon floral, Fleur D’Interdit, for Givenchy in 1994), but he also made the very dark, starkly masculine, aromatic fougere Santos de Cartier in 1981, a perfume that could hardly be more different.
These contrasting tendencies can be found in Eau De Givenchy – a very original composition that combines dour, melancholic, briny, even slightly pissy elements – oakmoss musk sandalwood (vetiver patchouli ?) against a very vivid springtime meadow of narcissus and cyclamen and other vernal flowers – cyclamen, or the idea of cyclamen the key to my eye – – bracing herbaceously and energetically in the top notes with grapefruit, mandarin orange and mint : at once outdoorsy and lighthearted, quite liberating in many senses for its unsweetened androgyny, its post 70’s dose of fresh air
—- while also to my mind somehow depressive, insistent – deliberately diffident and passive aggressive.
I never entirely liked Eau De Givenchy when I smelled it on my friends at school, while also respecting them for wearing something so ‘intellectual’, stern, and overtly unsexy (though it actually is) ; yet still always inhaling deeply, fascinated when inhabiting their space. This scent clung to me, to my deep seated memories of that time, which is why, in my shop the other day I couldn’t resist buying a sealed and cellophane wrapped vintage soap, still in its unopened plastic case.
It still smelled great ; weird ; potent : undiminished: exactly as I remember it in the early eighties. D hated it immediately – ‘sickly’ was his intuitive response, and I must agree that there definitely is something clammy; enticing, but offputting, here, as if Anais Anais had drowned herself sadly in a rock pool, reeds willowing gently beneath her feet like Ophelia.
But I also know that I have a miniature in my collection somewhere, and there might easily come a day in the spring – a private day, alone, when I might need it ; when I suddenly feel like showering down to the nub with the soap, not with preservation, but total abandon – like Emma Corrin dancing naked with the beautiful Jack O Connnell in sudden torrential storm in the brilliant, and naturalistically stark and passionate new film adaptation of Lady Chatterley’s Lover; then wear this curiously disturbing gem : corn blues and honeysuckle and eglantines ;: drenched in a vivaciously mournful, late April rain shower.
While part of me is pleased that there are high school students unfazed enough by the general snootery at Hermes to spend the afternoon sniffing their entire perfume collection – perhaps as a gift for a friend (I very much doubt it); perhaps for the hell of it (much more likely ); another part of me is very irritated by the ridiculous procedures currently in progress at the store.
Though it is understandable that the top tier conglomerate might want to limit the number of customers on the shopfloor in the midst of the seventh or eighth wave of the panic (look how crowded it was just now !)
: putting a cordon outside – as OnWingsOfSaffron noted recently, having experienced the same phenomenon somewhere in Europe -‘to keep out the riff-raff’
fuck off !
is a physical provocation : a deliberate, symbolic keeping of the braying, baying masses salivating at the doorstep begging for baguettes that really doesn’t make you warm to the Hermesians, staring blankly from somewhere inside.
I didn’t have time on this occasion – again – to be blessed entry by the lizard on the door (exactly the same thing happened last week; ‘luxury shoppers’ glancing languidly at their conspicuously placed wristwatches…. debating whether or not they could actually be bothered )
I finished the teachers’ classes today. From April to November on Tuesday and Thursday mornings I do English conversation lessons with small groups of teachers ; sometimes exhausting, often enjoyable and intriguing, especially when for whatever reason some can’t join and you are left one on one.
I find that when alone, teachers – especially men – reveal more of themselves than when held back by the for-the- sake-of-appearances groupthink ; recently I have had some very interesting conversations about perfume and ‘aroma’ – as the topic is generally referred to here.
One teacher had gone down to Osaka to specifically seek out a contemporary Japanese perfume brand , Shiro ( his favourite fragrance is white lily ); another, whose main interests are Egyptology and bodybuilding, professed an obsession with osmanthus; today he brought in his all natural solid perfume by Seikatsu no Ki ( Tree Of Life); an aromatherapist I also often frequent : he carries it around in his pocket and let me smell it today in the lesson ; clearly a natural absolute in the base, animalic, with orange and apricot facets ; delightful to me that more people are interested in scent, and the art of the olfactory, than initially meets the eye.
Neil Chapman : How have you been during these difficult times?
Julianne Oc: Thank you for asking. It’s hard to know sometimes, there’s a lot of survival-mode going on after the plague.
I’m navigating them (the difficult times) and beginning to emerge out of the numbness of the last few years. I went into lockdown riding a wave. Dreams which I had worked very hard for, were coming true. The ensuing isolation then brought significant loss, artistically & socially and on many levels. I think I’m still recovering. Life feels very different. It isn’t easy to dive back into the modes of coping and thriving I was used to before, though I don’t really know why. I’m spending a lot of time adapting and recalibrating. I’m lucky to have music and goals. What about you?
NC : I am ok. Much better than I was, anyway. I think I basically lost it during the pandemic – not that it is over by any means, but that morbid intensity and fear has definitely subsided and I feel as if I am coming back into myself a bit more again.
I was on a bike ride the other day around where we live in Kamakura and I came across a perfect white camellia. I stopped and photographed it. I then suddenly remembered (though I had never forgotten) that we were going to do this, but then as is often the case with an inconsistent person like myself, I got swept away in all the latest news horror, work stress, and personal flotsam and jetsam and it never happened. But here we are again now.
‘White Camellia’ is the title track of your first album – and the whole thing is really lovely. This song in particular reminds me, vaguely of Goldfrapp’s Black Cherry album, the obscure 4AD band His Name Is Alive, as well as reminiscences of Kate Bush’s dark and poignant Lionheart period. But it is its own genus; of right now, but also in a different realm.
JO: Alison Goldfrapp is interesting, isn’t she? Somewhat of an enigma. I particularly liked the 2008 album Seventh Tree. I’d like to know more about her journey. I just looked up her age (56). That’s pretty impressive. I’m willing to bet she has fought hard for her lasting place in the industry. I liked the song Black Cherry the song but I’m not familiar with the rest of the album.
I often feel like a feminist-fan failure when I admit to not knowing a vast amount of Kate Bush’s music. I was definitely influenced by Ariel, which I listened to incessantly when I lived in Devon. I’m not sure there has ever been a time someone hasn’t referenced her to me after a gig. I suspect I was standing on her shoulders unconsciously. I much admire her natural ability to just get on with it and do her thing, be herself, carry on in many aspects of her work. I’m honouring the reference.
When I was layering the harmonies of White Camellia, I think there was a subconscious fixation on the rolling waves of Ghibli’s animated ocean in Ponyo; the scene where Sosuke is on the hill and Ponyo is gleefully running after him on that ominous rising water. Simultaneously unsettling and invigorating, the mix of threat and joy. There’s an all-encompassing, transcendent allure about the feel of that film, it just takes you to another universe; absorbent, colourful escapism. I wanted the music for this album to feel like that.
NC: To my shame I must admit that I have never seen a Ghibli film, even though I know that he is worshipped around the world. Many of my students have seen his films scores of times, even hundreds : he is really venerated.
Would you call yourself a romantic? (for me, there is a purity, a naïvete in your music, even though there is also a slightly poison-tinged, laconic aspect undertingeing everything as well)?
JO : Fascinating.
I used to be a die-hard romantic but after I healed the proverbial daddy-wounds, I’m more pragmatic. That said, this album was written in the wake of an intense, doomed love affair which had me hooked for longer than I care to admit. If there is a tinge of poison, it probably tells of that regret. Chemistry is mysterious. It promises so much and is indefinable. Ultimately though, if there is dysfunction or incompatibility you are not going to succeed in relating happily, which isn’t fair, and it hurts.
Perhaps buried in the naivety, is hope. I don’t want to lose hope, even after surviving being a woman in this world and somehow making it to mid-life not totally defeated. I’d rather hold on to a semblance of innocence than embrace cynicism. It’s a fine balance.
NC: I feel precisely the same about innocence and cynicism. I don’t want to be an idealistic fool but at the same time the true cynic is never happy.
What is the significance (if any) of the camellia as flower for you ? How did you come to write this song?
JO: There is a whole subtext in that song. I used flower folklore to veil my vulnerabilities and because well, flowers.
There are multiple meanings in folklore, but White Camellia tends to represent romantic love, affection and purity. I think you don’t give White Camellias in Japan though (?) Connotations of death. Quite different. But I love the ambiguity. Perhaps more interesting is my locked-up Lobelia! *
This song was written in a life-crossroads moment. I knew had to let some darkness go but I didn’t really know how. I wanted to stop repeating patterns that had served me up to a point but were now getting in my way. It was a difficult process. Someone really good had floated unexpectedly into my life. It gave me a new kind of hope. So I guess it’s about a bridge, an exit from not-so-comfortable comfort zones, about trust, vulnerability, fear and hope.
Burning Bush is a most fascinating anomaly of wonder, btw. Are you writing songs? I want to hear more. The video of your singing touched my heart. Its voice is really quite exquisitely beautiful. If such expression is bestowed upon a thing, is it not an unarguable duty to share it prolifically far and wide?
NC: Burning Bush is a strange one. I am still not entirely surely what it represents for me deep down: for now it is dormant ( the volcano analogy is apt; I have a lot to get out) , although I did a big performance recently – in October in Tokyo – and it was hugely enjoyable and cathartic.
D brought the entity to life, almost ten years ago now, and I have to admit that once that happened, I felt like I was exploding into the stars, vastly more realized somehow.
When it comes to music, obviously it goes without saying that I have nowhere near as much musical talent as you, not remotely, so we are not comparable in that regard ( fantastic to get your approval though; there will be more! ). I can improvise and make up the odd bit of music, but have never actually written a song : it’s like fiction somehow: I know that for me it would be impossible. Life is already so intense and overwhelming in its beauty and terribleness that I feel that there is more than enough material for me to work with. I like writing words : about perfume, my life and the people in it; cinema, culture, the world; it must be hugely satisfying to be able to deal with similar issues embodied musically, though, in a song: a hermetically engineered, sealed but porous world that lives forever on its own terms. I envy you that.
Should I refer to you as singer songwriter’, incidentally ?Or do you prefer ‘performer’ (a bit Cirque Du Soleil) or, ‘musician’ (a bit studio session bassist) : you write your own songs and sing them, but don’t you think there is almost something limiting about that label, ‘a singer songwriter’ : a tad older-Carole King-stuck-at-the piano churning out hits for other people, or even a bit Barry Manilow? ( Do you remember I was always playing the dramatic opening chords of his Could It Be Magic on the piano as a kid? Or was it my ridiculous Moonlight Sonata classical musician piss-take that used to have you and David and Owen in stitches : I can’t remember)
JO: Ha! Isn’t it weird, the singer songwriter label thing. I have settled on music artist at the moment. Nothing really quite cuts it though does it.
It was your ridiculous Moonlight Sonata classical musician pisstake. There was no singular event more hilarious in my childhood.
NC: I can see myself now; always something of a class clown.
But back to the music…
Part of me really loves the intimate, in-the-room-with-you production in White Camellia (was this intentional on your part?) Another part, I must admit, is yearning for a more epic, sweeping mix.
JO: My producer Paul suggested an intimate feel for the first part of the song, and cutting the reverb was part of that decision. Yeh I think it would be nice to do more mixes, I know what you mean – an emotive chillout beats type thing could work well. Is that the kind of thing you mean? I’d like to experiment with a moody face-melting bassline for it.
NC: Would you do a Bond song?.
JO: Absolutely.
NC : ( Julianne’s music is already being used as the theme song in several international TV shows : she would nail a 007).
Your song ‘GiftFrom Elle’ is vaguely terrifying. What was the genesis of that one? I love it. It’s like Belle And Sebastian listening to Air inside a sepulchral tomb in the interior of Brazil – (do you know Os Mutantes btw ? Crazy psychedelica from the 60’s? I am reminded of that green shadowness; the moisture that lies beyond. I think my ultimate aesthetic in this life is lushness ). Your harmonies are eerily out of body here, as well as in the exquisite ‘Traces’, possibly my favourite of these tracks: otherworldly (I won’t say ‘ethereal’ – I am sure you are sick of being called that now!) . How did you learn to do this, by the way? To harmonize and multilayer the voice? Is it instinctive? I am incapable.
JO: Vaguely terrifying. It’s wonderful that you get that. I think being vaguely terrified describes much of my existence quite well. But it’s weird because I also recognise the side of me that is utterly fearless and always has been. Do you think it’s possible to be both terrified and fearless at the same time?
NC: I do think so. I am a bit like that myself.
JO : You do have to be brave to write songs, and as I am discovering, braver still to release them publicly. There is so much scrutiny about the many different details. I have learned to grow an elephant hide which protects me from critical voices, but my own is probably the worst. It’s an extraordinary process.
Growing up I thought everyone could harmonise. My brother can do it too so perhaps it’s something in the genes. I spent countless lost hours harmonising with hoovers, hairdryers, lawn mowers, whistling taps etc., experimenting with different voices, singing obscure complimentary scales and find that very fascinating indeed. It was only when I joined my first professional band at 18 that I realised everyone can’t harmonise. I found that quite shocking actually.
But I digress. Gift From Elle was written from the perspective of the opposite gender. Do I know how it feels like for a boy? Probably not, but I had a go. The silence of men can be crippling for women. Silence is violence. Sins of the fathers. It’s some way attempting to express these issues. For example, I suspect one ex of mine was wildly jealous of my complete freedom to put on a dress and waft about, smelling of citrus and red lipstick flaunting my tender birthright of femininity. Imagine the secrets we would uncover if we all told the truth. Imagine the potential intensities of healing if sexual shame were defunct. I don’t know if my suspicions were founded in any truth, but if they were, imagine if he’d just told me. Maybe we could have made it.
NC: We met through music.
(A little context : Julianne and I were childhood friends. In the Midlands, going to the same school, though she was two years below me. We lived round the corner from each other and spent a lot of time together as well as with the other kids who lived on that block: we bonded over our record collections; lost contact and drifted apart for many years before getting back in touch out of the blue with each other a decade or so ago – when over big G + T’s in some Birmingham bar or other we realized that we still get on like a house on fire (there is something ‘extra’ about Julianne I can’t quite describe).
Julianne and I occasionally meet up when I go back to England now : she also came down to my book opening in London for Perfume, a fantastic gathering of people important to me which I was very touched by. In many ways J and I are kindred spirits – both on the ‘wild child’ tip growing up in respectable suburbia with volatile families and never quite fitting in;although of the two I was the boring goody two shoes)
NC: At the end of the day, I think I do probably consider myself something of an outsider. Do you see yourself that way?
JO: I do. And I have explored this notion many times and in different circumstances throughout my life. There have been times I have felt at home, but they are often transient. Perhaps that’s simply the nature of life but I think it has something more to do with growing up in a family who shall we say, had very different interests. If you feel like an outsider in your home as a child that sentiment is probably going to stay with you throughout your life. Cognitive development shit is hard to shake.
It was my hairdresser who first called me a wild child, midst spiral-perm. I adored him, he was an affirming tonic on a Solihull Saturday. It just felt like he got me. I remember feeling instantly elevated, like I had a sudden status. “You’re the wonderful wild child” or something like that he’d say, and I was like, fuck yeh I’ll have that. Funny how we can pin our identities on these little moments.
His overt gayness was intoxicating to me. So refreshing and wonderful to be around male energy without that underlying subtext of the ‘gaze’, the complexity of which I of course didn’t understand at the time (13ish). I just knew I felt very comfortable in his presence. I sometimes wonder whether I had similar feelings towards you – but actually I think it was more that you had a gift of encouraging creativity. The emotional safety that inspired was invigorating. I remember being blown away when you said I could call you any time to read you my poems down the phone. Literally no one but you in my sphere was remotely interested in hearing my little-girl scrawlings. I fucking loved you for that. With all your razor-sharp wit, intimidating physical beauty, talent and intelligence, the thing that impacted me most about you was that you were kind.
NC: Wow thanks. I actually hadn’t realized I had had such an impact…… I was struggling myself too despite all the natural exuberance, but you always stood out. I have a so many great memories of coming over to your house to listen to you and your brother’s latest vinyl acquisitions and then dance our asses off to the disco lights that David had proudly installed. He had a massive, big show off stereo system I was in awe of that put everyone else on the block’s to shame : and I was basically in heaven every time we could have our own little club nights: I can still see those strobe lights flashing..
For a troubled and ultrasensitive child like me coming into himself, just letting it all go to Madonna’s ‘Into The Groove’ at top volume was just incredible : like I was finally coming fully alive.
JO : Ha! Yes David did like the best stuff. His wife Karen says he is still the same and his family joke about how everything he buys must be the big version, like a Dave go-large nickname or something. He makes truly excellent cocktails I discovered recently, which didn’t surprise me at all. He has many talents.
Ah those discos, the music, the lights. It was enthralling. I never wanted you to leave, you carried fun around with you. Why do you describe yourself as ‘ultrasensitive’? Do you still feel that way? The word makes me twitch just a little, like it could be used critically. Maybe you don’t see it like that at all and if so I’m sorry. But I prefer ultrasensory. I mean, heightened sensory awareness, that’s a superpower.
NC: I had never properly thought about that before, that ‘ultrasensitive’ can be turned against you. Actually I do much prefer ‘ultrasensory’, though it feels a bit exceptionalist.
JO Everyone thinks the music they grew up with was the best era, but we were very lucky to have the diversity of the 80s. Madonna – where would we all have been without her soundtracking our youthful awakenings? Borderline, Everybody, Crazy for You, La Isla Bonita: pure gold.
NC: I specifically remember lots of Madonna 12”s from the Like A Virgin period being on the turntable; Frankie Goes To Hollywood; the Miami Vice theme extended mix (!) – but specifically of course, our mutual adoration of Scritti Politti. I was (and still am) obsessed to the core with them, blasting out my Absolute, Wood Beez and Hypnotize 12”s at top volume when the time is right – usually sunny spring and summer days and just standing and staring at the beauty of the sleeves and the perfection of the pop. I haven’t changed one iota in that regard. Does that make me a sad case of arrested development?
JO: I think we should all take artistic sustenance however it comes, and if that’s staring at the same art for decades, why would you not? I am fascinated by our reasons for being attracted to certain music or art. The way it makes us feel, why it might be touching our complicated psyches. I have often found myself digging around in there. When I was a kid I was obsessed with Dali’s Metamorphosis of Narcissus. I read some of the Greek mythology which inspired it and discovered the fateful story of Echo, which I decided to adopt as an important lesson in the detriments of gossip. Very helpful. Once I felt I had received my important message from that artwork (Echo was not the only one), my obsession with it waned. But that’s just a little story.
I found becoming a mother almost fourteen years ago interrupted the luxuries of spending hours on art appreciation. Music has always scaffolded my days, but I miss visual art. I like to paint too and fantasise about a time where I’ll set up the easel again and get lost in colour.
A couple of years ago I was working in a city called Atsugi. With its air of yakuza-tinged macho-hood and its main thoroughfare full of meat restaurants, there was a swagger to the place that I personally found refreshing. It was simultaneously, under neon, both amusing and disturbing to come out of the main school building at night to see guys in slim moustaches and double breasted suits; sunglassed older toughs looking menacing in limousines if you walked to the station down a particular side street (the students were instructed to go the other way); but as a foreigner, as an alien, you could just glide through, watching like a goldfish bowl.
At the Atsugi station, there was a lily, alive for months and months that was very persistent and seemingly indestructible. I would drink my after work can of beer at the far end of the platform where I could be alone and look out into the underside of the traintracks and bid it hello; wondering how it could still be going even as we got into the colder weather in mid December. At that point, it was admittedly starting to falter a bit, a little ragged but clinging on; but where it was situated, somewhere beneath the white stone stairs of the stationmaster’s office and the concrete step before the train entry, must have given it a strange form of unique microclimate that enabled it to thrive for so long, refusing to quite give up to the ghost. Prior to this one lonely stalwart, there had been whole fields of lilies seeded on the ashpalt railtracks straggling with weeds from the summer onwards; in Japan lilies grow everywhere, wild, glorious, and I always find the scene, and the smell – which either permeates or nauseates the air, depending on your standpoint – incredibly thrilling. There are lilies of every variety that bloom in seasonal waves , overlapping each other in their debutante stages; stargazer, candidums, longliflorums, calla, tiger lilies easter lilies ; when they are all out in bloom I ride round my neighbourhood in ecstacy, stopping to smell, and sometimes pick, them, though the sickliness inherent in lilies – a ripeness always threatening to orgasm, a seminal lume that can be gagging – leaves them better on the stalk.
Natalie Feisthauer’s lily scent for Maison Crivelli, Lys Sølaberg, is inspired by the sight of lilies flourishing in an unexpected place, the fjords of Norway:
“The lily that made the biggest impression on me, was one that I came across after several hours spent walking through damp marshes strewn with tall grasses and scattered flowers. That day, as usual in the region, the weather was highly unpredictable…..Along the way, we caught sight of numerous waterfalls flowing down dark granite walls. Our final destination was a village on the cliff edge, facing the sea. We reached it around midnight. And yet, although it was the middle of summer, the sun still hadn’t set. In the distance, we could see rays of sun illuminating the waves, creating an iridescent shimmer. I remember taking shelter for a moment between two wooden houses with thatched roofs. And right there, at that very spot, I was surprised to see some lilies.”
“Working on this fragrance, I was lucky enough to be given total freedom to express my interpretation of the memory Thibaud (Crivelli’s founder) and I had shared. What struck me most, was this very original aesthetic vision of nature. I wanted to transcribe the remarkable beauty of the fjords, with the sun shimmering on the sea, the sweet smoky aspect of the lilies, the power of the wind, the mineral stone, and the darker, more humid aspect of the peat. I wanted to convey the idea of Mankind faced with rugged nature. And so there is a real duality in this creation. It opens with a beautiful pearlescent light to begin with, then evolves towards a note that evokes the power of the elements, which is almost telluric, and not at all fragile. The creation expresses itself and evolves in contrasts between the smoky, spicy lily facet, the radiant, slightly alcoholised quince, and a peaty/woody facet provided by the amber woods and an overdose of ambroxan, as well as an absolute of roasted oak shavings, which adds a remarkable, strong and incredibly sensual patina to the accord.” – Nathalie Feisthauer.
With its central and base notes of dried fruits, ambroxan, cedar, guaiac, ‘smoke’, tobacco gilded to wine lees, quince and carrot seeds welded to oakmoss and oak, you can probably guess what I am going to say next about Lys Sølaberg: : : …………………….
There is no lily.
There are no flowers.
Where is the lily?
The complete and utter lack of perceptible florality I smell here is quite troubling to me as a perfume writer as it makes me doubt my own apparatus (Has anyone else tried this and if so, do you detect a lonely lily struggling along the railtracks?) As a standard, familiar, 2020’s-ish sweetish, androgynous ambroxan wood spice this works quite nicely, in a style that dates back to snuggly winter perfumes such as Lutens’ Fille En Aiguille: peaty, smoky, whiskeyish perfumes abound in the niche world : you could line your shelves with boozy winter woods like one of those specialist, fetishistic Tokyo collectible whiskey bars ; but it is difficult for a trembling white flower to survive when cloaked in so much oak. I was imagining, from reading the notes before smelling, that somehow the lily would prevail and be visible, exhaling its breathing liliness somewhere among the dry but boggy quagmire. Alas, my sensitivity to synthetic wood notes and some form of olfactory blindness (probably because of the sheer sumptuousness of my bi-annual extravagant exposure to real lilies which must have overpermeated my smell brain) – prevent me from taking – at all – to this particular Norwegian Wood.
Le Magnolia De Rosine, unlike Lys Sølaberg, does what it says on the tin. Very much so (too much so? Some bastards will never be satisfied). This rather impressive soliflore, co-authored by frequent Rosine creator Delphine Lebeau and the legendary Pierre Bourdon – according to Fragrantica, he created Creed’s Fleurs De Bulgarie in 1845 – smells as vividly laundered white as it looks; a gleaming bright hyperfloral that indeed does conjure up the realness of a heaving magnolia bloom on the bough. Quite cleverly so : real magnolia essence is used in the composition, along with lily of the valley, notes of freesia, citrus, and a variety of roses to replicate the petallic freshness that the perfumers were after.
“After having offered a subtle and modern lily of the valley with LE MUGUET DE ROSINE, Marie-Hélène and Louis Rogeon wanted to introduce a new soliflore in the collection, and they choose the magnolia. Even if magnolia tree does not come in their garden in Picardie – situated too much in the north of France – Marie-Hélène and Louis both have a strong relationship with this flower. Marie-Hélène as a child spent some holidays in Britany, and she remembers the huge, strong and dark magnolia trees, exploding in August with velvety, creamy flowers, surrounding the atmosphere with their fresh citrussy smell, covering the fragrance of the rose bushes. A memory of a solar perfume, synonymous of joy, with the delicacy of the roses as a background. For Louis, the story is more unusual. Very near to our boutique in Jardin du Palais Royal, in a street named rue Notre Dame des Victoires, one magnolia tree has been planted. And every summer, this part of the city, when you close your eyes, becomes a garden. As an enchantment, the powerful of the fragrance is such that it covers all the other urban smells.”
Perhaps this is the key problem with this perfume (covering up something; an unrealistically beatific concealment; flowers, themselves so much more fleshy and easily corrupted on the stem). Not that there necessarily is a problem as such with Le Magnolia De Rosine, and we know already that I have some sensitivity to this flower for whatever reason, perhaps partly from the eeriness of an experience I once had with a woman here who was once obsessed with me and who gifted me a magnolia perfume she bought especially for me in Florence, but there I possibly digress. I do think that Les Parfums De Rosine’s Magnolia is one of the best and most realistic magnolia soliflores I have smelled: I can imagine using it in an art performance: it would be amazing at a wedding. There is a luminescent creaminess, a dreaminess, that is extremely attractive in many ways; holistically photorealistic for a while, without any jagged edges (that is, before the inevitable L’Occitane-ish/ Roses De Chloe peony/citrus/rose ending, when the illusion starts to rather fade and it all feels a little bit cheaper; still pretty, in an office photocopier, prosaic coffee in plastic cup kind of way – yet even the segue to this stage is effortless…..).
