Berlin’s CIRCOLO VIZIOSO channel outrage at Russian invasion of Ukraine in ‘Walls’ single

REM News Team — Thu, 08 Feb 2024 14:40:17 +0000

Kraut-inspired punk rock duo Circolo Vizioso presents their new single ‘Walls’, a song written in outrage over the Russian invasion in Ukraine. This is the second taste from their debut album ‘Verrueckt’ (out March 1), a potent chaser to the first single ‘Choppy’, a high-octane song spawned from a bout of depression brought on by a failed love story.

This album arrives four years after releasing their 5-track ‘Isolation’ EP (2020). Here they offer a potent taste of their unique brand of high-intensity, lyric-driven punk, created mainly with electric violin, guitar and drums.

Hailing from Berlin, Circolo Vizioso is made up of Tony Scafidi (guitar, bass, drum, hi-hat, vocals) and Paul Geigerzaehler (violin, snare drum, vocals). The band plays abrasive, groovy punk music that is influenced, on the one hand, by the sound of 1990s New York, Chicago and Washington embodied in such bands as Fugazi, Blonde Redhead and Sonic Youth, and by the sound of early 80’s and 90’s Eastern German and Eastern European punk bands like Dezerter, Sandow and Schleimkeim on the other.

About this new single, Tony Scafidi explains, “The Bluesy guitar line let the cat completely out of the bag I guess. I was listening to a tonne of Blues and amazing bluesmen like Cedell Devis, R.L. Burnside, Johnny Farmer, who I learned about from an old Fat Possum Records documentary, and my bandmate Paul had an amazing text he had written against the war in Ukraine and the filthy growth of the extreme right wing movements in Washington and shortly later in Berlin, attacking Capitol Hill and the Reichstag. Paul walked into the rehearsing room while I was having a massive solo blues jam, started singing to it and off we went on to finish ‘Walls’ an hour later.”

Formed in March 2020 on a balcony in Friedrichshain, Berlin during the first Covid-19 lock-down, Circolo Vizioso was born as an attempt to keep art and music alive and to provide support to their neighbours during a time when no concerts were happening and no cinemas, museums or galleries were open.

In spirit, Circolo Vizioso is a last ditch effort by these artists to resist the isolation and the lack of social and human contact, as well as the hunger for music and art during this unusual time.

About the upcoming ‘Verrueckt” album, Paul Geigerzaehler explains, “We wanted an album that could express anger, frustration and disaffection against an unfair world and all the discomfort entwined with that and we wanted to do it with direct and bare lyrics, abrasive violin lines, fat distorted guitar solos, and big fuzzy riffs. Yet we wanted people to dance to all this batshit crazy world in a sort of self-exorcising dance, where one can head to bed with the feeling that they have at least sweat their daily demons out for the night.”

‘Walls’ is available via Bandcamp (with other platforms to follow), while ‘Choppy’ is available everywhere digitally, including Apple Music, Spotify. The full ‘Verrueckt’ album, which will be released on March 1, is available for pre-order directly from the artist via Bandcamp.

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CIRCOLO VIZIOSO – Rock Era Magazine

Berlin’s CIRCOLO VIZIOSO channel outrage at Russian invasion of Ukraine in ‘Walls’ single