Sex Pizzul are back on the playing field with the new EP SuperSocrates, to be released on September 24th, 2021 via Annibale Records. The first single Dr. Socrates is available on all digital platforms from June 11th, a date that marks also the start of the new UEFA European Football Championship (EURO 2020).
The sound of Sex Pizzul, “mundial disco punk” trio from Florence which takes its ironic name from the union between Sex Pistols and the famous Italian radio commentator Bruno Pizzul, goes from the typical punk roughness to danceable rhythms, from new wave to math rock, or maybe it’s better to say “match rock”. The band line up with Irene Bavecchi on bass, Francesco D’Elia on synths and Simone Vassallo on drums, all three of them alternating in songwriting and on vocals, running very fast between riot attitude, references to the best genre cinema and irresistible tribal beats. The football imagery is given by lyrics that celebrate international teams, players and coaches, almost universal icons that function as a mirror for transversal socio-political and cultural happenings.
SuperSocrates, for example, takes its title from Sócrates Brasileiro Sampaio de Souza Vieira de Oliveira. Socrates was a genius, a Doctor of Medicine even before being a footballer. The EP is the evolution of the music originally born as a soundtrack for a theatrical show, where the Florentine trio approach the story of the Brazilian champion. The story of Socrates, a character closer to a superhero than to a “simple” captain of a “simple” football team, was a perfect playground and gave the idea of putting three different shades of him into music: the Doctor (Dr. Socrates, single-theme song with an animated video), the “superhero” (the extended title-track SuperSocrates, with catchy special powers) and the fighter (the percussive and noisy Socrates’ (s)Kills). Sex Pizzul carry on their work of contamination, recalling Brazilian world but adapting it to other languages, ranging from disco-funk of the Eighties to French electronics of the 50s and 60s, up to obsessive hardcore assaults. The three songs were produced by the band together with Cristiano Crisci, in their homes and at the Patchany Studio in Florence between winter and autumn of 2020.
Socrates has revolutionized football. According to Pele, he was “the smartest in Brazilian football”. He was nicknamed “O calcanhar que a bola pediu a Deus”, that means “The heel bone that the ball asked to God”. Sócrates has changed football also because he has changed the way of conceiving it. In his team, Corinthians of San Paolo, he had established the so-called Corinthian Democracy: to make any decision, all team members from the top scorers to the warehouse workers were called to vote. Their motto was “being champions is a detail”: an experiment and a message to the Brazilian people of the early 1980s, still torn apart by the dictatorship. Socrates was defined as “leftist and anti-capitalist”. One day he said: “I would like to die on Sunday, while Corinthians become champion”. And he really died on Sunday, December 4th, 2011, while Corinthians became champion of Brazil.
Founded in 2015, Sex Pizzul have joined their forces, and the most disparate stylistic influences, after the militancy in various other bands of the Italian alternative scene: among others, Bavecchi with Kill The Nice Guy, D’Elia with King Of The Opera, Vassallo with King Of The Opera and the live band of Clap! Clap!. Their debut album Pedate was a collection of stadium anthems inspired by British post-punk and vintage video games, followed in 2019 by the more colorful Anticalcio, that increased psych elements and groove lines. The primary focus remains the immediacy of the live shows, interrupted in 2020 due to the pandemic. Waiting for a full restart, SuperSocrates is nice kick suggested for those who love barrier-free music and football.
