Chembur (ByRedo, 2008, Ben Gorman)

First, the blurb:

Ben's mother is from Mumbai and wonderful family picnics were held outside the city in the Chembur pleasure grounds surrounded by temples and shrines, always filled with smoking fragrant incense and garlands of marigolds and jasmine. It is this nostalgic picture that Ben paints with CHEMBUR - a shimmering, golden Indian perpetual afternoon palpitating with richness, heat and colour. The top notes are bergamot, lemon and elemi - the warm heart blends different incense oils with nutmeg and ginger; the elaborate base is of musks, amber and labdanum. A transcendental experience, an aching memory...

(Thank you, Les Senteurs.)

It is rare that a new fragrance gets me as excited as this one does. I can't think of a time since Dzing! when I've been so filled with intrigue and joy when sniffing my wrist. The beauty of it! The zinginess of it! The dirtiness of it! This fragrance is magnificent.

There's a citrus/resin zing which I think is the elemi, a whack of spicy, nutmeggy incense and a deep, sexy amber and musk base. There's sweat, too. There's also - and I mean this in the nicest possible way - a distinct woodsmoke touch of the Jorvik Viking Centre. Or the Canterbury Tales exhibition if you're more familiar with that one. (You know the one, with the cardboard bum that sticks out of the window. Everybody remembers the cardboard bum.)

I hear that the rest of ByRedo's fragrances - Pulp, Gypsy Water, Green and Rose Noir - are equally good. I assume we should keep our eyes on this Ben Gorman man. Apparently he's only thirty; I can only imagine what other wonderful concoctions he might create during the rest of his career.