Email
Hometown: Zwaag, the Netherlands.
The lineup: Jacco Gardner (vocals, instruments).
The background: Jacco Gardner was born in the late 80s but sounds as though he came of age in the late 60s. It's a very specific late 60s that he evokes on his debut album, Cabinet of Curiosities: the ornate, lushly orchestrated, psych-inflected "soft rock" or "baroque pop" of British groups such as Nirvana and the Zombies, and American bands such as the Millennium and Sagittarius. Actually, the latter pair were the project names of one man, Curt Boettcher. Boettcher was a singer, songwriter, musician and producer who took the idea of Brian Wilson at his most studio-focused and the Beatles' own post-1966, no-touring, studio-only ethos to the extreme.
These are the models for this 24-year-old from the Netherlands: as Gardner explains, those "mostly studio projects where the songwriter or artist also took over the role of producer and could really start experimenting and work out everything they could think of themselves. Important artists/producers in this genre would be Curt Boettcher, Billy Nicholls, Syd-era Pink Floyd, the Zombies, Brian Wilson and Love." Gardner recorded and engineered Cabinet of Curiosities at his Shadow Shoppe Studio in Holland, playing every instrument himself save the drums, having mastered recorder, clarinet, bass, guitar, keyboards and violin as a child. As an adult he also appears to have got to grips with the harpsichord, mellotron, flute and organ, because they're all part of his chamber-pop palette.
He hasn't just got the instrumentation and overall sound right, using all the right analogue equipment. He's got the right voice as well, which is weird because it's a specific way of singing that can best be described as posh. And that's his Cabinet of Curiosities all over: posh and polished and prettily poignant. Expect charming chord sequences and unexpected key changes, and don't be surprised when things take a turn for the melancholy, even sinister. Watching the Moon has the same creepily Old English air that pervades Syd Barrett's work. The Ballad of Little Jane tells a sad story about a girl who "sits in the shadows, waiting, looking out the window for her love". On the title track a harpsichord and echoes of children's laughter provide haunting backing for an instrumental that could easily have wound up as the theme to a 1970 TV detective serial starring Peter Wyngarde. Lullaby is the eeriest of all: "I will bury you where the sun goes down," sings Gardner, "deep within the night, sleep when stars are bright." There's something horribly lovely about that image, and something freakily intriguing about Gardner's Cabinet.
The buzz: "One of the best new artists around."
The truth: Temples, Tame Impala, and now this: it's been a good year for psych pop.
Most likely to: Get confused with Syd.
Least likely to: Get confused with Jacko.
What to buy: Cabinet of Curiosities is released on 12 February by Trouble In Mind.
File next to: Nirvana, Zombies, Left Banke, Curt Boettcher.
Links: jaccogardner.com
Friday's new band: Sinkane.
