The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Fischersund No. 23 arrived in 2017 as a numbered release from a group of Icelandic creators including Jónsi Birgisson, the vocalist and guitarist of Sigur Rós, who turned his hand to perfumery alongside his family. The brief was simple: translate Iceland into scent. The official description says it plainly, oil-stained hands, industry, salty ocean air, pipe tobacco. That combination is unusual territory. Not pristine glaciers or geothermal hot springs. Something rougher, more honest. The kind of Iceland that exists after the tourists go home and the weather turns. The fragrance opens with a bracing maritime note, salt air that carries an industrial undertone, as if you've walked into a workshop where hands have been staining themselves with oil and tobacco for years.
What makes No. 23 unusual is the way it holds two opposing forces in tension without resolving either. There's a cool, marine freshness, bergamot, cypress, the brine of seaweed, that reads almost like a sea breeze. Then there's the dark, grimy tar and smoke underneath, the kind that stains your hands and doesn't wash out easily. Most fragrances use marine notes as a bridge to freshness. This one uses them as a foil. The salt makes the tar smell denser, not cleaner. The bergamot doesn't soften the smoke, it makes the smoke feel more abrupt when it arrives.
The evolution
The opening hits fast and hard. Birch tar arrives with the medicinal sharpness of a newly tarred rope, quickly joined by the brine of seaweed and the clean heat of black pepper. Bergamot flashes briefly, almost a courtesy, before the smoke takes over. The first thirty minutes are dense, smoky, and a little unsettling. The heart shifts slowly. Fir and cypress emerge as the smoke softens, bringing a green, resinous quality that cuts through the tar. Licorice surfaces in the background, adding a bittersweet sweetness that prevents the composition from becoming purely austere. The leather accord strengthens, and by hour two the fragrance has settled into something warm and herbaceous, with tobacco beginning its slow rise. The drydown is where this fragrance earns its longevity. Tobacco and patchouli anchor the composition for hours, while ambergris adds a salt-animalic warmth that keeps the whole thing from drying out. By hour six, the fragrance has become a quiet, close-to-skin warmth, the smell of wool and woodsmoke on a person who spent the day outdoors.
Cultural impact
Fischersund occupies a specific corner of the niche fragrance world, not the polished luxury of French houses, not the theatrical extremes of some indie brands, but something rawer and more personal. No. 23 in particular has attracted collectors who appreciate its unapologetic use of birch tar, a material that polarizes as much as it captivates. The fragrance opens with an immediate confrontational quality, the smoky, almost medicinal character of birch tar asserting itself before softer notes have a chance to establish themselves.
