Plutonic Rainbows

Dawn by Frédéric Malle, composed by master perfumer Carlos Benaïm, is a powerful meditation on oud, illuminated by the sacred stillness of early morning. Part of the brand's Desert Gems collection, Dawn evokes the quiet majesty of a new day breaking over the Middle East, where the air is laced with incense, heat, and centuries of tradition. The opening is a radiant burst of pink pepper and Turkish rose, immediately introducing a sense of regal intensity. But it’s the heart — an impossibly rich, resinous oud—that defines the fragrance’s character: smoky, deep, and reverent, like ancient wood left smoldering on a temple altar.

What distinguishes Dawn is its emotional weight and balance. Benaïm tempers the wildness of oud with a warm, golden amber and the sticky, animalic depth of labdanum. The result is less confrontational than The Night (Dominique Ropion’s sibling scent in the same series), yet no less commanding. It wears like a ceremonial garment — formal, imposing, yet unexpectedly comforting in its drydown. Sillage is elegant but assured, and longevity is exceptional. Dawn is not an everyday fragrance; it’s a moment of stillness rendered in scent—timeless, spiritual, and resolutely grand.

I finished refining my general use prompt, optimised specifically for Claude when run with claude --dangerously-skip-permissions as the terminal command. It has taken me about three months to get this just right. I am confident that it will not need any more work now — at least for Opus and Sonnet 4.

Of course, when the next major model arrives, I will need to look at it again.

I ordered two Maison Francis Kurkdjian samples — Reflets d’Ambre and Absolue Pour le Soir. These are essentially re-releases from last year, with Reflets d’Ambre replacing the long-discontinued Ciel de Gum, while Absolue Pour le Soir retains its original name.

Ciel de Gum is the name of a high-end department store in Moscow. Maybe the original name, with its Russian associations was deemed not suitable in the current climate.

Reflets d’Ambre arrived a few days ago, and it does smell quite similar to Ciel de Gum. I’ll need to compare them more closely before deciding whether it’s worth purchasing as a replacement. I haven’t used Ciel de Gum since it was discontinued—thankfully, my bottle is still nearly full.

Demdike Stare & Cherrystones’ collaborative journey into the underworld of sound delivers a masterclass in dark ambient and experimental electronics. Recorded in London and Manchester, the album bristles with scrappy, industrial-noise textures reminiscent of 1970s ECM, Minimal Man, and Conrad Schnitzler, brought together with haunted vocal flourishes from Laura Lippie. This is no casual listen: Who Owns the Dark? unravels like a ritual — merging technoid shrapnel, hyper-compressed loops, and chanted incantations into psychoacoustic mazes that feel both crystalline and corrosive. At once feral and refined, it’s among the most compelling deep-gear drops of the century.

Unveiled by Heat Crimes, Avenir’s archival compendium Primitive Maxi Trial is a time-stamped mixtape of Palermo-based rave relics from 1998–2006. Sourced from CD-ROM pack detritus and MPC/VST experimentation, it refracts hardcore jungle and IDM through a prism of haunted ambient and bent tekno. Tracks jump from the jagged breakcore of CVS Recipes to the acid nods of Just Friends, weaving an uncanny tapestry that feels both deeply nostalgic and strangely new. It’s a vivid snapshot of an era, unearthed and limned with eerie clarity — a sonic archaeology well worth exploring.

Amosphère’s debut album for Hallow Ground, created in meditative isolation over three years, is a cosmic deep dive into the interplay of belief, space, and human perception. Across three generative pieces — featuring vintage organ, handmade ceramics, flute, and bass clarinet — Cosmogonical Ears conjures vast sonic architectures: from frigid organ drones and off‑tuned wooden winds to ethereal flute and church organ reveries. The result is both sculptural and cinematic — you’ll find yourself tracing the boundaries of time, an immersive meditation on the cosmos that feels as intimate as it is infinite.