Kid Koala x perfumer Celine Barel. A future/past stroll down Olfactory Lane

Every now and then, life's adventures can introduce you to a whole new scene that shifts your understanding of the world. It has often been said that your sense of smell is one most closely linked to memory. Though, I never really experienced this first hand until relatively recently.

I am mainly an auditory being. Spending many of my waking hours since my school days in recording studios, rehearsal rooms, music venues, or headphones...

My sense of sound is much more developed than my sense of smell. But let me take you back to the year 2013. When the universes of sound and scent would harmonize for the first time in my life. 

We had been booked to perform our Space Cadet Headphone Concert at Luminato Festival in Toronto. The show had already been workshopped at Mass MOCA and had toured around the world prior to that.  But Jorn Weisbrodt, the visionary artistic director of Luminato Festival at the time, wanted it to be a premiere of a new version of the show. 

We riffed on ideas of how the show could be updated or expanded. At one point Jorn said "Hey I have some colleagues at IFF (International Fragrances and Flavors) in New York, maybe there's some way to do a collaboration there."

It was going to be the  multi-sensory version of the show involving sound, sight, AND scent!  An olfactive presentation of Space Cadet.  Also, it would be the first time we would present the show outdoors under the starry night (weather permitting and fingers crossed). 

The next time I was in NY for a gig, Jorn arranged for me to have a meeting at IFF with Anahita Mekanik, Senior Scent Development Manger and perfumer-creator Celine Barel. They gave me a tour of the building, which was lined with classy showcases displaying some of the fragrances IFF had a hand in creating including fragrances for Lancôme, Calvin Klein, Hugo Boss etc. I had recognized many of the bottles and brands from seeing them at airport Duty Free shops on tour. Although to be honest, I never stopped to look at or smell those things because, hey what do fragrances have to do with scratch DJing? 

Well, this...  

Much of the music on the Space Cadet soundtrack was recorded during the months shortly after the birth of my first daughter, Maple. It was such a special time for Corinne and I, the newbie parents. We were so enthralled by the presence of this new being in our home. She had a crib that was about 6 feet away from my turntables/piano in the studio. I would write and play her lullabies on the piano often. To try to wrap the house in a bundle of calm music. To me, Space Cadet OST is a collection of lullabies. Whenever she was asleep, I would either play piano quietly or record all the turntable parts on headphones. It ended up being more of a delicate, nuanced recording... mainly because, a lot of the time there was a baby asleep in the studio. 

But what's that got to do with smell?

Well nothing... yet. Fast forward to my meeting with Anahita and Celine at the IFF offices and laboratory.  I explained to them how the show was built around an intimate interface with the music. And it doesn't get really more intimate than headphones. We also looked through the Space Cadet book together and discussed how we can integrate an olfactive element to the performance. 

I told them how the musical set list in the concert aligned with certain pages/scenes in the story. The Space Cadet story itself unfolds through a series of flashbacks and flashforwards in time, through which you're able to piece together the story and relationship between this Guardian robot and his daughter (Space Cadet).  In previous presentations of the show, we would perform a music piece from the score with either the panel from the book or an animation inspired from that page projected on screens around the venue.  

Celine asked me "Are there certain pages in the book/show where you would like there to be an olfactive moment?"

I thought about it for a second, but as I told you before, I had a very underdeveloped sense of smell and was not aware of the possibilities available in that world. 

I flipped through the book and there's a page where the guardian robot is preparing a meal for the young Space Cadet.  "Well, here the robot is frying up some tofu.  Can we make it smell like fried tofu?"  I was only half serious, I was mainly trying to find out what the range of possibilities were.  But I caught a bit of an eye roll from Celine, as I soon realized I was way out of my league when it came to the olfactive jedi arts. 

They laughed, and then Anahita told me how we didn't need to approach scents so literally. Things could/should be a little more impressionistic. Celine said "Perhaps we can make it smell like loneliness or elation, intimate or vast, cozy or chaotic... it could even smell nostalgic."

I was shocked. At first I didn't know what she meant. But as we discussed the scent  possibilities, I soon realized what she was talking about was using scent as a way to trigger emotion. 

What?! You can do that???!!

I felt really foolish about the tofu comment now. It's almost like when someone in the studio says "Hey, you're a scratch DJ, Can you do a little ziggy ziggy right here on this part of the song?" 

I soon realized that I'd been living in a world of primary colors of smell.  But Anahita and Celine began to educate me on the whole scent scene. 

The more we talked, the more I started to understand the level to which it could go. They brought me through the lab of IFF and presented me with different scents while they described them. Using terms like accord and harmony. They would break down the scents so I could sense them better, "here is the base" (though I heard bass) and "here is the high note" and "hear is the long note".  

There was a harmony and balance they would strive for in scent development. It was then when it clicked, scents could be made into a time-based experience.  

For instance, first you get hit with a tonic note, but as that wears off you're left with another high note in the air, perhaps a subtler one that lingers and takes your brain somewhere else. Like the sustain on a strummed guitar string or an amplitude decay on a synth envelope. It was all making much more sense to me! It surprised me how much this scene had in common with music.

They even showed me a scent analyzing machine in the lab. It was connected to a glass dome where you would put your scent source. Say a flower (or some tofu LOL), and the machine would analyze the air and scent in the dome, and would digitally sample the base components or characteristics of the scent and then suggest ways you could re-create it with other available scent ingredients. What?! This technology exists?!  My mind was blown. I thought I was seeing the teleportation device from Cronenberg's The Fly or something. It's like an SP1200 for smells!

"Celine, I think you should read the book and design some scents for the scenes that resonate with you the most."

We all talked about how to integrate these scents into the show. Could we use a diffuser and mist the fragrance into the air? Or maybe we make a scent card for each audience member, like the little folded scent pages that could open (you may have seen that tech/technique used in fragrance ads in fashion magazines).  But since the show was outdoors, using a diffuser wasn't really a possibility. Anahita and Celine decided that the best way to do it was to create a scent kit with miniature vials of each scent. That way, you could have the experience live at the show AND the audience members could take their kits home and have the scents next time they reread the book. I loved that idea!

I found it so wonderfully educational to hear them speak about the components in each scent. So I thought it would be great if Celine could write a little statement on each fragrance to describe her points of inspiration and the choices she made to create each scent.

We printed them on the back of the kit.  They're like album liner notes but for scents! 

Celine picked 5 pages/scenes that she wanted to design scents for.  The first one was for page 28.  A flashback scene where Space Cadet reminisces about a time she was at the beach with the Guardian bot and he finds a seashell...

This is what Celine wrote about her scent SEASHELL

"I created the scent for their escapade to the beach in layers: The sensual warmth of benzoin tears and the granular quality of cedarwood for the sand. A salty marine accord reminiscent of ambergris for the ocean. A combination of citrus fruits and creamy coconut for the sun-kissed skin effect."

The next one was for page 64.  A present-day scene where Space Cadet discovers and collects a plant from the surface of a far off planet...

Here's Celine's take on her scent SPACE BOTANICAL

"In 1998, IFF sent a miniature rose plant called the Overnight Scentsation aboard NASA's space shuttle Discovery mission STS-95 and captured its smell in the absence of gravity. When I saw this drawing, I had to use the Space Rose, which I paired with a metallic note to convey the coldness of interstellar space."

The next scent she designed was for this page which was a present-day city scene, where the robot, left behind on earth, was trying to maneuver through the busy city streets. That's him standing in the middle of the chaos on the page on the right.

Here's Celine's notes on her scent URBAN CHAOS

"This image evokes such sensory overload. I wanted to create a scent that "shouts" and is out of balance. I used a smoky Lapsang Souchong tea note with some patchouli and birch tar to give the sensation of asphalt and exhaust pipes"

This is arguably the most Cologne-y of all the scents in the kit.  And it truly "shouts" as Celine intended. It is exactly as loud as the comic panel is. As a fragrance, it is too powerful of a scent for me to wear!  The one I wear (on anniversary dates and movie nights) is the next one, based on pages 112-113. Which Celine called ROBOT FACTORY.

Here's what she had to say about her scent ROBOT FACTORY

"My inspiration for this scent was a blend of steam and cold metal. I used aldehydes and amber extreme, an IFF captive molecule that smells very sharp and metallic. To convey the human side of the robots and add a sense of warmth, I also used a molecule that is the closest smell to human pheromones."

Finally, the last scent in the kit was designed for page 73.  A flashback scene to a young Space Cadet's 7th birthday.

Here are Celine's design inspiration notes for her her scent BIRTHDAY

"The birthday scene is such a blissful moment. I envisioned a scent that would be comfortable, relaxing and a little regressive to awaken the child within all of us, I concocted a blend of vanilla absolute, musk and a mother's milk accord that is the universal idea of love for me."

Below are some test bottles that were sent to me for "evaluation" before each scent was put into manufacturing. They all smelled wonderful and I didn't have any notes for Celine on her designs.

The performances went splendidly. It was partly cloudy but there was no rain, even though the wonderful staff at Luminato had a whole "rain escape plan" for our stage/set up if it did. You could catch a glimpse of some stars in the sky between the summer clouds. We even had a special guest cellist Adrian Fung (Afiara Quartet) who would join us later with the Nufonia Must Fall Production.  It was just a beautiful night overall full of stories, sounds, sights and of course scents. I will remember it forever.

The Sixth Scent

This next photo is for the fragrance collector nerds. It was a sixth fragrance that Celine created as a variation to SPACE BOTANICAL, she called it SPACE PLANT. We knew the Space Cadet olfactory kit was only going to be 5 scents. And we all chose SPACE BOTANICAL as it paired better with the other scents in the kit. So this scent which Celine called SPACE PLANT, never went into production. As far as I know, this is the only bottle of it in the world. Like a private press perfume! Or the scent version of a white label rare mix dubplate! If you are ever at my house, I'll let you check it out. It is a beautiful scent also, as is everything Celine creates. 

Upon writing this post, I uncapped a bottle of ROBOT FACTORY. And indeed, in an instant, that entire summer evening and all the memories from the year leading up to that show came back to me. The fun times, the new friends I made, the extraordinary teamwork of the whole crew. The amazing vibe and smiles from the audience. It all came back into clear view. Just like it was yesterday. So I'm a believer when they tell me it's the sense most closely linked to memory. 

For me at least, she had found a way to bottle nostalgia and happiness.  

I see what you did there, Ms. Barel, and thank you. 

e

extra credit reading.:  

If you want to learn more about Celine Barel and her perfume-creating process read this wonderful recent interview with her here.

Anahita Mekanik is also part of an amazing new project called Algorithmic Perfumery. Learn more about this work here.