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The new millennium, instead of a technological or military apocalypse as was feared twenty years ago, has brought us a rather widespread revival of the psychedelic verb in any form: from heavy, space, folk, to primitive electronic, mostly of Teutonic inspiration.
Among the many artists who have emerged in the last 6/7 years, a small cult niche was carved out by Dutch minstrel Jacco Gardner, author of a beautiful pop fol psych album in 2013. Highly indebted to the Barrettian verb, he still managed to give a personal touch to his songs. With the subsequent "Hypnophobia", he continued along that line, but without the surprise effect, his formula already seemed like one of the many (and failed) attempts to update the psychedelic flair of the late '60s. So the somewhat low-key release at the end of 2018 of the third effort, "Somnium", was not surprising. You'll understand that my curiosity was little, if not none, because I was sure the guy had hit the infamous artistic dead-end as usual. And as often happens, I was wrong.
"Somnium" dramatically raises the stakes for the now thirty-year-old Jacco, managing to be probably the best album he has made so far. First of all, we are faced with an instrumental album, almost entirely focused on the use of analog synths, oscillators, and all that proto-futuristic trinketery from the mid '70s. The sensation is that of a soundtrack from some sci-fi movie of the '70s, but with an almost hippie melancholic soul.
And it is precisely a dystopian psychedelic vision (seen through the eyes of a teenager from the early '70s) that the 12 tracks of the album evoke. It's hard to choose the best, personally, I find the first two beautiful, which pass the same theme from the synths of "Rising" to the following ballad based on organ, tablas, and acoustic ("Volva"); or the tribute to the early Air of "Past Navigator" that fades into a "Levania" bordering on territories adjacent to Stereolab. Up to the hypnotic and spatial psychedelia of "Rain", and an idea of robotic pop song as the Kraftwerk could conceive ("Privolva").
Among the best psychedelic things of the past year.
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