Inspiration is hard to come by when house-ridden. The routine of safer-at-home becomes stale as environmental stimuli become homogenous. Sure, you can redecorate; reanimate your space by rearranging your furniture, if your space is big enough to allow for such things. My studio apartment isn’t, so in looking for new sensory stimulation I turned to the sense that I could vary the most: scent.

I was first turned on to small-batch Philly-based Uncle Ron’s Candle Company by my friend, Nicholas Deyoe. A sucker for judging books by their cover, what most attracted me was admittedly the graphic design. They look cool and even include a Simpsons reference (Tomacco! I mean come on…). I sprung for the monthly sampler pack, the Burn Box, and what started out of curiosity quickly became a highlight of each month. Now I expectantly peer through my mail slot, isolated and weird like Bart in “Bart of Darkness," waiting for the delivery of my candles. Each one breathes new and different life into my little studio. Inspiration came quickly.

“dune” is a synesthetic experiment with how to realize scent as sound in a way that’s hopefully not just referential. It’s derived from the candle of the same name, a mix of cactus flower, aloe, and green leaves. My approach was both formalistic and intuitive: while meditating with the candle, I attempted to isolate the different layers in my mind (I wasn’t aware of the above components until after the fact), paying specific attention to the timing with which the layers unfolded, the ways the layers combined and reinforced each other like musical overtones. I quickly set up my inputs (a piezobarrel pickup in the trumpet’s mouthpiece connected to an Electro-Harmonix Freeze pedal and a condenser mic in front of the trumpet’s bell) and VERY quickly built a patch in Ableton that felt complimentary to the scent (that part was intuitive). I then improvised the three movements found here (also intuitive), taking a sniff break in between to refill my nose. While I specifically tried to not approach this referentially – it smells like [blank], so I’ll make music that sounds like [blank] – what I discovered is that reference is perhaps unavoidable. I couldn’t shake the impression the candle gave me, that of a frozen desert (mmm frozen dessert), and the music similarly evokes that landscape, at least to me. You might smell something else.

While I made this with the intention of listening while smelling, I hope it’s sonically compelling on its own.

Smell ya later,
Ethan



Special thanks to Nicholas Deyoe, David Aguila, Nico Bejarano, Leah and Derrick Jensen, for their editorial insight; Aaron Ditro (Uncle Ron), for his ol-factory; and you, for listening.



Recorded December 27th, 2020 in Los Angeles



For more information about Uncle Ron’s Candle Company:
uncleronscandles.com
IG: @uncleronscandles