Ja Ja Dickicht — Brain Surgery

It’s not easy to do away with the obvious. It’s even harder if you’re batting for mass-appeal. This is why Brain Surgery, the first official song from Bern-based outfit Ja Ja Dickicht, is such a mind- boggling revelation. This idiosyncratic Avant-Pop nugget abandons practically everything that’s formulaic about Pop, leans comfortably into a mildly psychedelic vernacular and still manages to be as addictive as your favourite social media channel – minus the side-effects.

If anything, Brain Surgery sounds the way a kaleidoscope works – as if everything you heard was emanating from its centre and then rippling out in a steady progression of colourful, warm, swirling, geometric patterns. The vocals feel syrupy and hypnotic, as if they were melting with every single crackling, baritone-infused syllable – carried along with all the rest of the pulsating, sonic molasses, by groovy, relentlessly-shuffling, jigsaw like drum patterns. And the lyrics? Well, they’re a call for all of us to break out of our self-referential, lonely bubbles; delivered with a highly affective mantra-like drone: “today I’d like to lose all my doubts..today I’d like to meet someone else...today I’d like to smile at someone else...today I’d like a smile from someone else...but for t hat I’d need a brain surgery.”

The vocals, the production, the writing, the full scope of instrumentation (which also includes live drums) was all handled by composer / producer / multi-instrumentalist Pascal Schärli.