VU METERS

Eclectic Prog • Italy

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

Tour & shows updates
Press & news updates
Forum discussions
Videos (Youtube)
Buy music
Discography
Reviews
Official website

Vu Meters biography
The simple way in which the mechanism and the "idea behind" works for the Italian band VU METERS - which is, mainly, a jazz-jammy, alternative art rock, experimental and ambient heavy musical group, before adding the "prog" quotient to all that - can very well mark dry (still solid) qualities, and place their music inside the gene of thousand other bands that are fresh, contemporary and highly-skilled; but this usualness stops at a point where the lack of other passion other than that of making and playing music is a defining thing, plus the choice of rock sessions that are simply and fundamentally improvisations gets you the image of VU METERS's personal shine. More a band of three musicians with a great past activity than a three-piece one, VU METERS has a supposedly surprising edge in recording a lot of music out of sheer improvisations and worrying less about building up songs, concepts and making a release out of their best scraps. Nevertheless, their debut, Dark City, holds a good part out of the reviews and impressions that land on the band's heard: VU METERS plays fascinating and powerful mixes of prog jam (if talking enthusiastically and positively about them) or just instrumental modern music by the pound, with creativity and stylishness (if taking it slower and more formally).

The image of three individual and well-formed artists joining into VU METERS was mentioned above, here's now a bit of story about each one: Stefano Pontani is a guitarist, with skills in composing and sound-exploring (probably recording/producing) too; given this, VU METERS has therefore its good amount of special moments that sound abstract or heavy/elaborate as far as the composition goes. He has played or still plays in four different bands, out of which EZRA WINSTON is deeply appreciated from the modern Italian Prog generation, Anagramma is a jazz-rock band with many guests and Matilda Mothers Project sounds like psych-rock. Ugo Vantini plays with S. Pontani not only here, but in EZRA WINSTON as well, otherwise being a drummer with his own adventure: a debut with the psychedelic band Movie, a kick-project called Divae, experiences along bands like Area, Anekdoten, Banco, Metamorfosi and Orme, all the way to a possible collaboration with BALLETO DI BRONZO. Fabrizio Santoro is finally the second guitarist of VU METERS, having earlier studied and played piano. Enlightened and inspirited by classic prog bands like King Crimson, Gong or Magma, Santoro collaborated in...The simple way in which the mechanism and the "idea behind" works for the Italian band VU METERS - which is, mainly, a jazz-jammy, alternative art rock, experimental and ambient heavy musical group, before adding the "prog" quotient to all that - can very well mark dry (still solid) qualities, and place their music inside the gene of thousand other bands that are fresh, contemporary and highly-skilled; but this usualness stops at a point where the lack of other passion other than that of making and playing music is a defining thing, plus the choice of rock sessions that are simply and fundamentally improvisations gets you the image of VU METERS's personal shine. More a band of three musicians with a great past activity than a three-piece one, VU METERS has a supposedly surprising edge in recording a lot of music out of sheer improvisations and worrying less about building up songs, concepts and making a release out of their best scraps. Nevertheless, their debut, Dark City, holds a good part out of the reviews and impressions that land on the band's heard: VU METERS plays fascinating and powerful mixes of prog jam (if talking enthusiastically and positively about them) or just instrumental modern music by the pound, with creativity and stylishness (if taking it slower and more formally).

The image of three individual and well-formed artists joining into VU METERS was mentioned above, here's now a bit of story about each one: Stefano Pontani is a guitarist, with skills in composing and sound-exploring (probably recording/producing) too; given this, VU METERS has therefore its good amount of special moments that sound abstract or heavy/elaborate as far as the composition goes. He has played or still plays in four different bands, out of which EZRA WINSTON is deeply appreciated from the modern Italian Prog generation, Anagramma is a jazz-rock band with many guests and Matilda Mothers Project sounds like psych-rock. Ugo Vantini plays with S. Pontani not only here, but in EZRA WINSTON as well, otherwise being a drummer with his own adventure: a debut with the psychedelic band Movie, a kick-project called Divae, experiences along bands like Area, Anekdoten, Banco, Metamorfosi and Orme, all the way to a possible collaboration with BALLETO DI BRONZO. Fabrizio Santoro is finally the second guitarist of VU METERS, having earlier studied and played piano. Enlightened and inspirited by classic prog bands like King Crimson, Gong or Magma, Santoro collaborated in the end, as a young musician, with NODO GORDIANO, OAK and other musicians.

VU METERS and their "Dark City"(you can't talk particularly at this point) draw from a musical liberty the catch of improvisations and fast, developed melodies, of creativity and a relaxed way of playing music, of sensibility without the real deal of an artistic influence. As mentioned, it's very usual for this band to avoid limiting to one or two styles and cold music and to create a genuine rock/jam experience out of simple but intense sessions, but the belief in creativity and pleasure as the basic edge in improvising and moulding a sort of rock, jazz and jam is a different thing. The trio won't tell you how or why "Dark City" is the best and closest to a good selections of their entire work, but they'll tell you what a long way it took from playing "freely and wildly" to ending a finished record: "very long sessions [...] countless hours of music in the studio", turning "free improvisations" into something that's "no more a raw sound", but an entire "original recording". The album, in its final version, is similar to a heavily processed, mixed and experimented material, made of songs and themes at the core, but a lot more complex in its whole. Stylistically, the allusion is clear: improvisations and jazzy eruptions instead of bare and sandy rock playing, technical and complex mixes instead of simple (even if free-styled) measures of art rock/symph/avant music.

VU METERS is interesting, mature, free-steaming and progressive, with the side-note that it has to do with the steady class of heavy art-rock, abstract jam and easy jazz.

:::Victor "Philip" Parau (Ricochet):::

Why this artist must be listed in www.progarchives.com :
Approved by Eclectic Prog Team

Discography:
Dark City (2007)read more

VU METERS Videos (YouTube and more)

Showing only random 3 | Search and add more videos to VU METERS

Buy VU METERS Music

DOUG LARSON IMPORTS — Buy prog rock music and rarities (Free shipping on orders over 10 CD's)
AMAZON.COM — Best-selling prog vinyls

VU METERS discography

Ordered by release date | Showing ratings (top albums) | Help Progarchives.com to complete the discography and add albums

VU METERS top albums (CD, LP, MC, SACD, DVD-A, Digital Media Download)

3.88 | 7 ratings

Dark City
2007

VU METERS Live Albums (CD, LP, MC, SACD, DVD-A, Digital Media Download)

VU METERS Videos (DVD, Blu-ray, VHS etc)

VU METERS Boxset & Compilations (CD, LP, MC, SACD, DVD-A, Digital Media Download)

VU METERS Official Singles, EPs, Fan Club & Promo (CD, EP/LP, MC, Digital Media Download)

VU METERS Reviews

Showing last 10 reviews only

Studio Album, 2007
3.88 | 7 ratings
BUY

Dark City
Vu Meters Eclectic Prog

Review by andrea
Prog Reviewer

Vu Meters is an Italian prog band from Rome that was formed by three experienced musicians: Stefano Pontani (guitars, loops - previously with Ezra Winston, Anagramma and Mathilda Mothers), Fabrizio Santoro (bass, guitar, mandolin, keyboards - former member of Nodo Gordiano and Oak) and Ugo Vantini (drums, keyboards - in the past with Ezra Winston, Divae, Twin Dragons and drummer in a recent line up of the reformed "seventies cult band" Il Balletto di Bronzo).

"Dark City", their debut album, was released in 2007 and it's the result of long "jam sessions". It's completely instrumental and features six long and complex tracks. The music flows like magma from volcano slopes, blending delicate beautiful melodies with fiery and raw passages with the rhythm section in the forefront. The mood is dark, unquiet like the art cover by Ugo Vantini... In many passages this work could remind of King Crimson (like in the opener "Brain Washing", in "Tetsuo" or in the hypnotic "AC/BC") while in other moments you can find a peculiar jazz feeling that melts in "pastoral and melodic" guitar solos (like in the excellent "Swarm Intelligence"). In some passages you can perceive some echoes of Perigeo, in others of Goblin (like in the end of the mysterious and gloomily beautiful title track), but on the whole this work has its own strong dose of originality and grows listen after listen... Definitively not bad for a self-production!

Thanks to Ricochet for the artist addition.