Jacco Gardner Live @ Stuk in Leuven and new album

Jacco Gardner has been known to create swirling psychedelic pop boosted by his rich, resonate and baroque voice but on his third album Somnium, his vocals are gone and in their place is an equally seamless melodic exploration but an instrumental one, with a synthesized occult edge.

Somnium is a nod to the novel of the same name, written in 1608 by Johannes Kepler and is regarded as the first ever science fiction novel. “This book fascinates me because it was basically Kepler traveling in his mind to a non-existent world while describing it, and his journey, with amazing detail. Many of his imagined sensations are actually really what happens when one travels into space, which happened almost four hundred years later. You could call it a vision of the future through his dreams, and I find this aspect very mysterious and powerful.”

This form of mind travel is what Jacco has set out to create in a sonic, almost alchemic, capacity. Hence the reason for his vocals to be left out of this spiritual journey. “I deliberately removed my voice from the experience, as it made it more difficult for me to achieve the intended state of mind. I think it makes the journey more interesting, more deep, and more intimate. I didn’t feel the need to show my face while one drifts away into thought. Somnium is a visionary experience. The album is more than just a trip, it is about contact with a deeper - hidden - reality.”

Tracklist

1. Rising

2. Volva

3. Lagrangian Point

4. Past Navigator

5. Levania

6. Eclipse

7. Utopos

8. Rain

9. Privolva

10. Pale Blue Dot

11. Descent

12. Somnium