Some people chase their fantasies; others capture them.
On Cabinet of Curiosities, you enter Jacco Gardner’s labyrinth. His debut album is a world rich with harpsichords, lush studio experimentation, and velvety baroque pop elements. Jacco transforms the soundscapes of a 60s psychedelic (often LSD-induced) era, rather than mirroring it. It’s easy to get happily lost within the corridors on songs like “The One Eye King” and “Where Will You Go.” He has created an enchanted netherworld that is completely under his control.
I spoke with Jacco via Skype while at his live/work Shadow Shoppe Studios in Swaag, Netherlands before he hit the road for his international tour.
People often describe your album as “articulations of lost youth.” Do you feel a sense of lost youth at all? Or was that just something you wanted to explore?
I can see why people say that. For me, making music has always been a way of holding on to that feeling that you have when you’re younger. That feeling that magic is real. The Peter Pan effect. For me, making this kind of music is a way to create that magic.
Did you watch a lot of fairytales growing up?
I’m not a fanatic, but I’ve always been very interested in things that took you to another world. Stories that take you away. I’m a very visual person, so when someone tells me a story, I can see it very clearly. I think that’s why my music is, in some ways, more cinematical.
How did you first come to discover this 60s psychedelic pop sound? What first drew you to it?
I’ve been listening to music that’s otherworldly for a while now, but it wasn’t until recently that I started to listen to 60s stuff. When I first heard Syd Barrett’s music, I was drawn to how he created such a unique world. When I found out that he was a casualty of the 60s and drug culture, I started listening to more 60s music. There are so many bands from the 60s that do that same thing – creating another world. And also, just recreating that moment of childlike imagination with the drugs that took them there.
I’ve read you prefer to be in the studio versus playing live. Is performing getting easier?
It’s getting easier and easier. It was really difficult in the beginning to get the right sounds live. But now that we’ve played more and more, it’s getting closer to what I’m satisfied with. I’m still not satisfied yet. In the future we’re going to add one more person in the band to play keyboards so I can do more instruments. The live performance is always a simplified version of the album. For me, it’s always been a little too simplified, and I’d like to make it more of a range.
What’s your ideal setting, then?
It would be nice to have all the instruments that I have on the record on stage. I’d actually really like to have string players, or an orchestra. I’m not sure if it would be ideal, however, because you create an atmosphere on stage as a band. And if the band is too big, it’s harder to create.
How many instruments do you think you used on the record?
If I had to guess, probably twenty. Maybe more, maybe less.
On Wednesday, October 9th, catch Jacco Gardner at Barboza (8 p.m., $10, 21+).
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