Runner's High

Six thirty, and the city has not woken up yet.

Steam coming off the streets, sun playing over them. Just running shoes and a hypnotic beat running on endorphins against a deep green blur of trees. The last neon rainbows of an eighties synth rippling through the headphones, and then the song ends.

Into the gap comes a burst of raw birdsong. A car horn somewhere. The silver sparkle of a bicycle bell. Messages for anyone and everyone, and this is the hour when noise turns into music. Galbanum keeps the air cold and green, blackcurrant bud sharpens it, and vetiver comes up off the pavement, resinous. Guaiac wood holds the pace.

NOISE builds fragrances the way a record gets built. Sound comes first and everything follows from it: the three tiers on every product page are treble, mid and bass, and a play button sits beside every bottle. Sound shapes the world before anyone is born, and the familiar mixed with the unexpected goes straight past the intellect and into the deepest corners of the mind. Sound, sight and memory are the three powers the work draws on.

The work is made in France and handed to a rotating cast of noses that has included Bertrand Duchaufour, Mark Buxton and David Chieze. The subjects are ordinary on purpose: a rusty garden gate, an elevator ride, the gap left after a song ends. Each one is designed to make its own mark and not to be forgotten.