Neo

The project Neo originated in 2001 when two jazz educated musicians, guitarist Manlio Maresca and drummer Antonio Zitarelli, join Fabrizio Giovampietro’s bass to create an instrumental avant-blues trio. The geographic epicenter of the project is the sunny beach of Terracina, a truthful town of southern Lazio, although the trio is harmonically and rhythmically closer to Northern Europe’s contemporary music, except for the overseas influences of Frank Zappa, Fred Frith, John Zorn or Minuteman. They begin to propose their destructured and madly ironic sound to the small clubs of Lazio, rewriting the traditional blues and effectively experimenting an unconventional blend of jazz, rock and punk who leads them in a few years to major artistic achievements and a brilliant reputation in Italy and abroad. After two selfproduced albums, Neo are chosen by Wallace Records and incorporated in the P.O. Box 52 compilation, while in 2005 they release their first album La Quinta Essenza della Mediocrità, produced by the florentine label From Scratch and immediately welcomed as an excellent and unexpected start by the best specialized press (enthusiastic reviews on Rockerilla, Blow up, Mucchio Selvaggio, Rumore, Losingtoday, Music Club, Ox Fanzine). Following the 2003 edition of Arezzo Wave, they continue to perform at brisk pace on the stages of the best clubs in Italy: Circolo degli Artisti Rialto Sant’Ambrogio, Init, Jailbreak, 360Gradi (Roma), Lazzaretto (Bologna), Melos (Pistoia), Target (Bari), Area Fenderl (Treviso), Ambasciata di Marte (Firenze) and many others. In 2006 their second album Problemi Dubbi Perplessità (From Scratch) is released, and in the same year, the trio takes a new form, replacing the bass with Carlo Conti’s tenor sax, musician of completely jazz extraction from the mainstream background of the capital. With the new line-up, the sound of Neo takes on a different form, always maintaining the distinctive counterpoint between the two voices (now sax and guitar) and the melody at the edge of the harmonic structure, with short solo improvisations of jazz nature and unexpected sound excursions. The challenge that Neo seems to face is to attack the essence of sound, destructuring it in paradoxical and unconventional forms, among excited Balkan flavoured rhythmic spasms and a review of that New Orleans blues from the’20s. Various and important collaborations with artists of international renown, have contributed over the time to broaden Neo’s audience beyond any restriction of musical genre: beginning from Luca Mai, Zu’s saxophonist, which occurs in the first album to add sharp colour to the joint of crazy cubist rhythms in the song Terrore Vigile.

Then with Marco Di Gasbarro and Fabiano Marcucci, drums and bass in Squartet, involved in the song “Il Sempliciotto” of the same album, then finally with Remo Remotti’s live participations, Steve Piccolo & The Crowdofone (USA), Flying Luttenbachers (USA) Sabot (USA), The Hub (USA). After more than two years of preparation, Neo is releasing the third album, produced by Megasound and distributed by Megasound / iTunes / Nokia. Looks like 2009 will be a year full of projects and commitments for Lazio’s trio, who continues his tireless work on the live stages of the most interesting Italian clubs, proceeding on international stages in Germany, waiting for the new album scheduled for May.
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