What does bass smell like?

Unsound, the exploratory music festival based in Krakow, Poland, has launched a strange new project called Ephemera which will see avant-garde perfumer Geza Schoen creating scents inspired by sounds.

Three musicians have been asked to create original music for the project, with Tim Hecker composing for ‘Drone’, Hyperdub boss Kode9 for ‘Bass’, and Bedroom Community composer Ben Frost for ‘Noise’ – all natural fits, we’d agree.

Schoen will then create scents to go with the compositions. “Electronic music can be quite abstract, yet certain sounds can trigger crossovers to certain smells for me,” he said.

A wearable version of the scents will be released in a collection later this year, and both the perfumes and the music will be used as part of an installation launching at Unsound New York at the end of this month. The installation will also include a visual component by Manuel Sepulveda of Optigram and video artist Marcel Weber.

After opening on March 31 at Audio Visual Arts in New York, Ephemera will travel to other cities and eventually arrive at Unsound Krakow in October.

Meanwhile, Kode9 is keeping himself busy this spring with a raft of club nights across Europe celebrating Hyperdub’s 10th birthday, while Ben Frost is gearing up for the release of his new album A U R O R A. [via Pitchfork]