By Keith Walsh
From the opening title track, “Verrueckt,” to the last, “Haeuser,” the excellent new album by Circolo Viziosco is concerned with the ways society divides us and contributes to unwellness (‘Verrueckt’ is German for ‘crazy’). The final track “Haeuser” is more of a call for return to medieval forms of unity — and between these tracks are stories about alienation portrayed through the healthy adaptation of making music. I spoke with Paul Geigerzaehler (violin, snare drum, vocals) and Tony Scafidi (guitar, bass, vocals, kick drum, hi hat) about their unconventional approaches, their philosophies, and their lo-fi musical output. (My review of Verrueckt is at PopularCultureBeat.)

Punk Rock Beat: By limiting the tracks to just a few instruments, how does the minimalist approach feed into inspiration when composing and recording?
Paul Geigerzaehler: I think limiting instruments (and the limitation by analog recordings 
too) helps to focus on the important things. This is clearly inspiring. At the same moment we do what we can do as a duo – more instruments would be hardly possible:-)
Tony Scafidi: I think  it works quite well cause we try to make the most of what we have got on the spot and having to make do with what you have not being able to rely on multiple guitar or bass lines, synths and keys just makes us get smarter in handpicking notes, sounds and pauses and mix guitar and violin frequencies in order to get redundancy and ghost notes out of the patterns.

Punk Rock Beat:  It’s interesting that Tony plays kick drum and Paul plays snare. What is the dynamic effect of fragmenting these usually integrated elements?
Paul Geigerzaehler: It forces a lot concentration and interaction.
Tony Scafidi: Well yeah, that’s kinda inevitable having to play around the drum lines only by foot. I play the hi hat as well as the kick drum which leaves no other foot available for the snare! Jokes apart, the dynamic effect is very interesting cause though being limited in terms of complexity and rhythm intertwinement that having a drummer would provide us with, we can actually create ‘non human’ rhythms, which indeed could be played only by a three legged creature. I would say at a first glance because of this non natural rhythm the listeners may well think that drums would have been played through a drum machine.

Punk Rock Beat: The album title translates to “Crazy.” If I’m correct, the entire set is
a commentary on how society contributes to our craziness. Agree or disagree?
Paul Geigerzaehler: Agree. (it might be an interesting discussion if it is the society or even 
more: the disbanding of society.)
Tony Scafidi: Agree.

Punk Rock Beat: In your experience, how does making music have a cathartic and healing effect?
Paul Geigerzaehler: Personally yes. It is possible to give the disasters an expression. In 
wider context? It depends. At least it helps to bring people together who feel similar.
Tony Scafidi: It does have it, music has always influenced to this extent the peoples from the origin of the humankind, probably music preexisted words and surely affects our brain chemical structure and our mood, just pick the right riffs though!  ahahah!

Punk Rock Beat: What’s the live scene in Berlin and around there? What’s the experience bringing your music live?
Paul Geigerzaehler: In Berlin there is still a quite active (D.I,Y.)-punkscene. Not as much like a 
few years back because the conditions have changed and a lot of clubs 
(and other useful infrastructure are) lost in gentrification. But there is something left. There are still a few clubs to play and a lot of other bands to share stages.
Tony Scafidi: The Berlin scene is notoriously quite lively and spawns new bands and artists time after time.  I would say the most influential band in town for me is Pisse, they can mix punk and wave in an absolute fresh and original fashion like no one else at the moment.

Punk Rock Beat: I notice the album is recorded in Berlin and mixed in Italy. How and why did this happen?
Paul Geigerzaehler: We did that to make it compatible with the heritage of our duo 🙂
Tony Scafidi: ahahah, Yeah right, looks like it was made on purpose doesn’t it ? the thing is we liked a lot Smail’s style of recording (Studio B Berlin). He is a great sound engineer, very keen on punk music and a great guitar player himself who was very active in the East German punk scene of the eighties. Yet we also wanted to get something different out of the songs that could echo our wave, indie rock and lo-fi pop reminiscences by having it mixed and mastered by Sacha Tilotta at the Tommi Boy Studio in Catania, Italy, who is a great drummer himself and plays in an ace band called Three Second Kiss.

Punk Rock Beat: In what sense would you say the concerns on Verrueckt are European in nature, and in what sense are they universal?
Paul Geigerzaehler: Specifically they are surveillances of things happen where we live (with 
one exception actually — “Wer schuld ist”). But as far I know a lot of these are quite universal.
Tony Scafidi: I’d say that naturally humankind is a broken machine, incapable of balancing itself out to tune to nature’s frequencies. Many an archaic civilization have developed strategies of dealing with this lack of natural satisfaction and sense of unity developing in ways that entailed having groups and help strategies for the lonely and weak  thinking of the wellness of individual as a result of the wellness of the tribe or the people as a whole. This was a successful enough attempt of overcoming dystopia and alienation.  With the advent of writing and borders though the seizure between individuals and society has increased more and more and at the forefront stays of course the western world as the most technologically advanced and most individualistic life style, as a result who feels more this discomfort would also sense more dystopic and alienated feelings carrying on through it.

Circolo Vizioso on Bandcamp
Circolo Vizioso on Spotify
Circolo Vizioso on Apple Music
Circolo Vizioso on Amazon Music
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Circolo Vizioso on Instagram
“Verrueckt” Album Review At Popular Culture Beat

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