Description
Hard Techno
It seems that many times my perfumes are a reflex of my personal life or my culture. Sometimes a new perfume is a way to look into a particular aspect of my life, a memory, or an interpretation of a part of my own cultural references. With Hard Techno by Miguel Matos, it’s probably all of that. In November 2021, I discovered a place in Lisbon where I was reborn to dance and rejuvenated by sound. In this place, raving is a weekly religion, and one DJ in specific, made me discover and love Hard Techno as a music style that makes me move. Since then, I have been raving almost every week, and feeling this energy running through my body made me transform in a way I simply can’t explain. With the fragrance Hard Techno, I wanted to pay a tribute to this place and this DJ, by interpreting the techno experience into the shape of smell. Hard Techno is my personal interpretation of the rough texture of the sound created by the Roland 303 synthesizer, a crucial device for this harder and darker face of techno. I created this rough texture as a coat for the recreation of the disco smoke accord, the chemical smell of everything synthetic, dust, sound and laser lights. Hard Techno is animalic, musky, spicy, powdery and sweet, like sweaty bodies dancing all night and morning. The following list of notes is just a way to simplify the scent profile, since this formula is 99.9% synthetic.
Perfumer
Miguel Matos has been an arts and culture journalist for the past 2 decades, and some years ago he found a way of turning an old obsession into a job: he is a scent critic and Scent Art curator.
He is one of the editors and columnists at Fragrantica.com and Fragrantica.com.br. He organizes exhibitions on art and olfaction for galleries and museums: Synesthesia Project / Per Fummum (Miguel Justino Gallery, Lisbon, 2015), Making the Body Think (Casa da Cerca Contemporary Arts Center, Almada, and Institute for Art and Olfaction, Los Angeles, 2017). He wrote the books Artistas Portugueses em Discurso Direto (Guerra e Paz ed.) and O Zodiaco Perfumado (Pergaminho ed), as well as many art shows catalogs.
He is also the creative director of a fragrance capsule collection with his name within the brand SP Parfums (Suntanglam, Lisbon Blues, Funfair and the upcoming Nowhere Fast).
He likes to talk, and he regularly hosts the series of lectures Perfume Sniffing in Lisbon as well as scented experiences with wine and scent for the Enoteca de Belém (Lisbon). Honorary member of the Perfume Bottle Association. He is a collaborator and writer for special projects at Parfums Grès.
Miguel was recently recognized on the top 5 finalists at the Fragrance Foundation Awards for Editorial Excellence in Fragrance Coverage (2017) and was also nominated for the Perfumed Plume Awards in the same year.
Miguel Matos was the winner of the best perfume in the independent category at The Art and Olfaction Awards in 2020 with the perfume Young Hearts.
