Put simply, Nightingale is a revamping of Guerlain's Mitsouko, a blatant throwback chypre in which peach lactone is cleverly substituted with the dry and shaded sweetness of plum blossom. Tomoo cushions the muted florals between starched bergamot on top and a woody labdanum and oakmoss below. Where Mitsouko is about moss, Nightingale leans on resins, with rich sandalwood and incense lending accents of fire and a puff of smoke, and just a smidgen of synthetic oud to round out. I get a fleeting impression of bready iris, which vanishes in the first few seconds of wear, and an unusual, borderline unpleasant Ivory soap effect an hour into the drydown. There's also an uneven feeling to the florals eight hours in (this stuff has nuclear longevity), making it not quite as pristine as Turin makes it sound, at least to me. Some of the balance between soapy-sweet floral and dry/bitter chypre just feels a little . . . off. Still, it smells pretty good.
In the bigger picture, I'm not sure I understand Turin when it comes to his idea of "technical" greatness. First of all, Nightingale doesn't even smell all that original. And the technical aspect of the composition seems to rely on switcheroos, swapping Mitsouko's notes for worthy substitutes. There's a pleasant little bouquet of violet and rose mated closely to bergamot, which is interesting, and here the perfumer is to be commended for resisting the urge to sweeten everything, as the fragrance remains old-school in feel. But frankly I find Nightingale a bit boring, in a different way from Tiger, which was simply too one-note vetiver. Here the dullness is in familiarity, and the nagging feeling that if I wanted to do this, and do it just a little better, I could wear Mitsouko and call it a day.