Hasta La Ideas

Back in March 2013, musicians and non-musicians alike gathered at London retail concept space LN-CC for a multi-sensory experience like no other. Thomas Bullock—a DJ and record producer with decades of street cred who fell in love with mezcal later in life—had…

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For those who have nothing left to pick over at the local bookstore’s summer display, theNewerYork looks to shake things up in the mainstream literary world by hosting alternatives to the “triumvirate” of poetry, short stories…

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by Sabine Zetteler Created after a decade of audio experimentation, visual artist Dinos Chapman has emerged from his basement of beats with a new album that delights and disturbs in almost equal measure. His first foray into music production is unconventional and peculiar, providing an infinitely enigmatic landscape of surreal…

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For their 20th anniversary as both musical and romantic partners, M.C. Schmidt and Drew Daniel—a duo better known as Matmos—are releasing an evocative new EP that dives deep into the psyche. Dubbed “The Ganzfeld,” the intriguing three-track compilation is a literal reflection of four years of telepathic experimentation and…

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Diesel fuel, tobacco, damp dirt and pine tree perfume from Portland, OR

Perfumer Heather Sielaff hand-blends idiosyncratic, mostly masculine scents for her label OLO Fragrance in her apartment in north Portland. “I’m not really girly,” she admits, and her perfumes tend to be intriguing rather than sweetly attractive. For example, Forêt’s notes of pine and vetiver recall the scent of earth and damp northwestern trees, while Victory Wolf’s birch tar, cedar and tobacco evoke nights spent camping beside an open fire.

Sielaff recently had a commission to create the smell of diesel fuel, which succeeded but had some unexpected consequences: “[The client] turned out to be allergic,” she says.

“Years of practical use allowed me to get to know the individual essential oils quite intimately,” says Sielaff, who trained as a neuromuscular therapist and studied aromatherapy on the side. “The thought finally occurred to me that making perfume would give me the opportunity to utilize my knowledge in a more creative way. It was initially just a hobby and I’m still a little surprised OLO took off the way it did,” she says.

Undoubtedly one of the most significant elements to OLO’s appeal is Sielaff’s sense of humor. Diesel-based perfumes aren’t the only unconventional product that she’s attempted—the limited edition Make Deux room spray—interpret the pun in order to deduce its intended usage—asks the would-be customer, with tongue firmly in cheek, “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a smell?”

Sielaff’s intimate knowledge of scents keeps her perfumes multi-layered, personal and complex. Many of her projects stay local and never make it out of Portland.”Some perfumes are limited edition or created for special events,” she says. One such side project was a fragrance created for the Portland-based band YACHT, called Shangri-La, that blends more than a half-dozen scents into one moody, floral concoction. She also created a limited edition art bottle and box series with Portland glass artist Andy Paiko and Portland woodworker Jason Rens.

OLO fragrances are available online or at selected retailers. For more information on Sielaff’s upcoming projects, check her blog.