He Sang Beyond the Genius of the Honeywell (ROUND 1)
scent of the day: Goat, by Wolf Brothers
Not the feral plunge into unwashed aggression I was expecting but definitely a back-up-bottle-worthy surprise—one that takes the mushroom-mold element of Figment Man in more of sheared-fleece direction than an earthworm direction and yet with a Haxan-reminscent envelop of aquatic-green sweetness. Goat employs a wide range of floral-earthy-spicey-animalic elements whose individual identities all surrender (even clove keeping its head low) to one pale-green-tinged goal of wooly gray set by the heavy lifters (fur tincture, goat’s milk, costus).
All converge, that is to say, to give us a petting-zoo nosedive into goat fur (a warm, cozy, musky, balmy lanolin) with hints of the larger rustic context (damp hay piles imprinted by the sleep of ruminant bodies, the sour tang of milk in wooden pails, the smoke of a shepherd’s wood-burning stove, the rooty snarl of soil churned up by hooves perhaps restless from a low-resolution sense of the grand absurdity of being born like this ultimately to die): apricoty-suede osmanthus amplifies the creamy tang of the goat milk as well as the skin-musk sweetness of the leather; dewy violet leaf amplifies the green elements (costus, pine, moss, vetiver) and provides a slightly metallic chill that reinforces both fresh foliage and the crisp alpine air (air that, especially in the opening, has a loud camphorous ambiance that could be too much for some); various dank fungal facets (mildewy mushroom, nutty truffle) not only embellish the musty impression of the goat fur (adding even a meaty-gamey-umami savoriness), but also merge with the earthy and woody notes (moss, patchouli, pine, fir, cedar, vetiver) to yield an image of agile lips and tongues foraging leaves and buds above as well as roots and tubers below; cumin and clove introduce sweaty pungency to what otherwise would seem more like artificial (or even metaverse) goat fur (since the neither the fleeciness of the fur tincture nor the wet-dog vibe of the costus come off as dirty); charred oud, more medicinal than compost-like, works with the smoky vetiver and the tarry leather to create a smoldering presence that more and more takes the place of the mentholated opening, the burnt effect being to evoke distant fire in addition to amplifying the gamey warmth of the goat’s scalp (which, like human perinea up close to the nose, does give a smoke-cured feel from thigh-heated oil secretions and bacterial waste).
I own several goat and sheep style fragrances. This perhaps comes closest to Black Sheep by House of Matriarch. Blakc Sheep is a bit more heavy on the cypriol wheres Goat seems more of an emphasis on the creamy lanolin. Sgail by Prin is another in the bunch. You got lanolin and wool just in Goat, but the peatiness and cumin element is bigger in Sgail. Both are very lactonic and mushroomy and furry and green—a mildewed-earth-meets-barnyard aesthetic (thanks to shared notes like mushrooms, moss, violet, cumin) with a shared leathery sweetness (Sgail from the smoked-hide immortelle and Goat from the velvety-suede osmanthus) as well as decayed mulch (Sgail from the peat-moss and Goat from the patchouli-moss) and greenery (Sgail more grassy and Goat more piney). Goat is darker and smokier and dirtier, though, whereas Sgail is greener and wetter, more herbal and—perhaps more importantly—more wooly, which really drives home—along with the peat—the foggy highland pasture vibe.
I might say that Goat is the best of the three scents, especially when cost is factored in as well as its oudiness and costus and the osmanthus I love more than immortelle. If I don’t factor in the cost, I think the edge might go to Prin. It is hard to say. I don’t know how Black Sheep would fit in but there is something less artsy, something more generic and perfumey, about that on—a bit heavy on cypriol there (but I will say, to my memory at least, Black Sheep does not give that generic synthetic castoreum leather that I get in both Sgail and Goat, which is a win for Black sheep). The patchouli violet combo here does also remind me a lot of Russian Adam’s Nepalese Patchouli, which is a violet benchmark right up there with Portrayal Man and Fahrenheit. Her ein Goat the violet is blended in a way where it does not stand out loud and proud like those other fragrtances. It is more like a violet-tinged pathcouli, which itself is blended in to this tobacco-bent straight-up clean sheep or goat smell—super photorealstic, but only after the goat has gone to the groomers.
*Let's workshop this poem about a man who, lying relaxed in bed at night, experiences a hypnagogic auditory hallucination--full songs unbidden, even radio host voices--against the white noise of a fan.
He Sang Beyond the Genius of the Honeywell
A song crept alive, chorus and verse, against the box fan’s blank canvas, the radio-host
airbreak unchanged in volume when he put the alarm clock to his ear—a taste of what
the greats mean when they insist the music, the idea, the image was just given to them.
“We need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.”—Kafka (against the safe-space cancel culture pushed by anti-art bullies, left and right)
