Psychedelic pop auteur Jacco Gardner crafts a compelling wakeup call
The video for “Find Yourself,” the first single from Jacco Gardner’s illusory new album, Hypnophobia (Polyvinyl), could easily be misconstrued as anti-drug propaganda. In it, a frizzy-haired teen, apparently in a fit of TCH-induced psychosis, guns down his equally weed-addled likeness in a cloud of smoke. Is it murder? Is it suicide? Is it a horrific hallucination? Whatever the intent, it is a disarming—and disturbing—counterpoint to a catchy, synth-washed baroque pop tune.
And you’ll get no argument from the song’s creator. “When it was finished and I saw it, I was like, ‘This could be one of those educational videos,’” says Gardner. “It seems like I’m warning people, but I’m totally not. I love weed.”
Mixed messages—and mixed realities—are pretty much the norm for the Dutch producer and multi-instrumentalist, who first emerged as a proper solo artist with 2013’s Cabinet Of Curiosities, an admirable stab at finding an otherworldly context for his wide-ranging flights of fancy grounded in old-school technique. “I love pop music,” says Gardner. “I’ve always been fascinated by using common song structures in my own way.”
Recorded at Gardner’s Shadow Shoppe Studio in his hometown of Zwaag, Hypnophobia conveniently conjoins his techie obsessions with a collector’s passion for vintage instrumentation—Wurlitzer, mellotron, harpsichord, Optigan, even a Steinway upright piano from a local church. The result is sort of akin to what it might sound like if Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker had embraced Syd Barrett, as opposed to John Lennon.
“The dad of a good friend of mine showed me Syd Barrett, early Pink Floyd and Soft Machine,” says Gardner. “Before that, I’d heard some records my parents owned—Simon & Garfunkel, Leonard Cohen, Peter, Paul & Mary—very structured, kind of square stuff that also was really beautiful.”
As for the title of the new album, hypnophobia—or an irrational fear of sleep—is an actual condition with which Gardner has had a few run-ins. “I’ve experienced it about five times, first when I was flying back to Europe from the United States,” says Gardner. “It’s kind of like getting stuck between a state of unconsciousness and consciousness—reality and a dream world—and being a little too aware of it happening. I looked it up and discovered that there’s actually a name for it. You get to the point where you’re aware of the things that you lose control over, which is a very scary thing.”
Scary, as in blowing away a dude that looks an awful lot like the guy pulling the trigger? “That was mostly the director (Bear Damen),” says Gardner, in his continued defense of the “Find Yourself” video’s macabre themes. “He had this idea of filming it in the mountains of Belgium. I played this phantom in a yellow car, and there was lot of waiting involved. It was super-cold, with all this ice and snow. The way it turned out, I really like it, because it has this cinematic vibe, and that’s basically what the new album seems to have. But initially, I thought the concept was way too badass. I’m not that tough.”
—Hobart Rowland
