DECAMERON - TEN DAYS IN 100 NOVELLAS (PART III)

In 1353 Giovanni Boccaccio completed his famous book Decamerone, in which a company of ten young Florentians have escaped the Black Death epidemic of 1348. During ten days each of them tells a daily story; thus the complete Decamerone contains full 100 short stories. It's undoubtedly the most important book in the whole history of short stories. The word 'novella' of Italian origin, used in this three-part anthology series, actually means (in today's English) a short novel, so it's a bit out of place... But anyway, the now-completed massive international project organized by the Finnish prog society Colossus and its Italian chairman Marco Bernard wasn't to make any compromises: each and every story has been given a musical interpretation on three 4-disc sets. Sadly I haven't listened to the previous parts.

In one word, it's a cornucopia! I have been listening to these approx. 70-minute CD's several days now, and I really could have continued to do so for many more days before reviewing. But now to the music. Quite a few of the artists participating in this anthology have favoured notable Medieval/Renaissance flavours (that I'm fond of) in their compositions or arrangements. That would not be the point at all, it simply wouldn't feel natural if all the dozens of prog bands/artists with their own styles tried to catch the spirit of the 1400th century. It's enough that the bands more or less share the spirit of the Golden Age of progressive rock. Downright modern stuff you won't find here. Who would want or expect to? Mellotron, Hammond, Korg, Moog, clavinet... and of course violin and flute are frequently listed on these pages.

My favourites on the first CD include instrumentals by AGENESS (Finland), WILLOWGLASS (UK), and a song by a US group ELEPHANTS OF SCOTLAND, one of the few using recorder to bring some Medieval touch. Before I forget, the best thing about this anthology has nothing to do with bygone centuries, it is the fact that it's exhaustingly full of excellent prog. The second best thing is that it introduces to me - and surely to anyone - numerous interesting prog acts I hadn't even heard of. I never would have guessed STELLA LEE JONES to be a Japanese prog group.

The most frequent countries are Italy and USA. Italian bands feature e.g. LATTE E MIELE, IL TEMPIO DELLE CLESSIDRE, TAPROBAN and IL CASTELLO DI ATLANTE. There are artists from Canada, France, Spain, Argentina, Australia (UNITED PROGRESSIVE FRATERNITY), Russia, etc.

Less than 1/3 of all artists I had earlier listened to, but I daresay everyone has taken this project with passion and high artistic goals. The existent stylistic variety naturally means that not a single listener can be impressed by all 36 tracks. However, only a very few tracks I rather skip (and I am generally pretty fond of the skip button, believe me). I'm glad that the majority of the tracks are instrumentals. Sometimes the lyrics are slightly clumsy as they concentrate in telling the story. Amusingly there are a couple of tracks with a theatrical or even opera-reminding dialogue approach: 'Put a Tail On It' by CASTLE CANYON (USA) is guaranteed to raise a smile. Usually an instrumentally oriented OZONE PLAYER (Finland) has invited four vocalists.

"Intro" piece by ROBERT WEBB (of England fame) and "outro" by Castle Canyon, again (their 'Nephile's Song' is one of my favourites) aren't directly based on Decamerone stories. Nearly each of the remaining 34 tracks are accompanied with a story synopsis, which is very nice. The thick booklet designed by Ed Unitsky deserves all the praise, managing to be both informative in a user-friendly way and visually beautiful. The same way as the CD's by The Samurai Of Prog, which as a multi-national virtual band can be seen closely related to these Colossus projects. Also here there are pieces featuring musicians from various corners of the globe. In the Internet Age it's not necessary to even meet in person in order to make music that matters.

It's not often that I'm willing to give a full rating to a various artists set, but this is such occasion. If I was imprisoned for months and was allowed to have just one CD release, this might be the one.

There is a lot of positives I can say about this collection. First of all, you get 4 1/2 hours of prog, for the price of maybe 2 discs. Second, you get tracks by artists that are unavailable elsewhere, or, in some cases, different versions. Third, there are artists from all over the world, five continents, contibuting to this project. Granted, not all of the tracks are great. I admit to skipping a few tracks, particularly on the 4th disc. But at the same time, there is some truly excellent music as well. I will point out that the lengthy instrumentals by Cirrus Bay and Ageness are outstanding, with some jaw-dropping moments throughout each of their pieces, and the track by Spanish artist "s.a.l.u.e.n.a", whom I had not heard of, is just fantastic. Notable here is the vocal section, with some beautiful vocals by Steve Unruh, who also provides a killer violin solo, and who is featured in several tracks in this collection. These three tracks alone are worth the price of the disc in my opinion. Other favorites include those by Latte e Miele, from Italy, Ars Ephemera, from Canada, and Stella Lee Jones, from Japan. The intro, by Robert Webb, is a fun slice of proggy heaven to start things off with as well. One curious track is that from Japanese artist "Interpose". This one started off a bit bland to me, like weak Renaissance, and I was nearly ready to hit the skip button, when suddenly it became rather glorious. The middle section was quite poignant, before getting into soloing and, after a nice Floydian section, back to the intro section to conclude the song. So this one song (nearly 12 minutes) would be curious to rate. Sometimes the vocals sound too thin, to high, or a little shrill. Other times they sound great. Some of the music is so-so, some of it, great. But that's the fun thing about prog, and this collection, and there are several tracks like this, where certain parts stand out over others. But all of this music for the price I paid, is the best purchase value I've paid all year.

The Colossus Projects began their ambitious projects in 2001 to promote the outstanding accomplishments of Finnish progressive rock (which there have been many) and then the whole thing kinda took on a life of its own as the collaboration with Musea Records created a synergistic effect that guaranteed an exposure to a worldwide network of tuned in prog aficionados salivating for something both creative, traditional and, of course, entertaining! After a diverse eclectic palette paving the way for even more sophisticated projects, in 2011 Musea Records released "Decameron - Ten Days in 100 Novellas - Part I" which isn't remotely Finnish but rather a collection of Italian tales excavated from the 14th century. The word DECAMERON is a neologism of the Greek words deca (ten) and mera (days) and THE DECAMERON which is subtitled Prince Galehaut is a collection of novellas written by the author Giovanni Baccaccio (1313-1375) and is structured as a frame story that contains 100 tales told by a group of seven young women and three young men who were sheltered in a secluded villa outside of Firenze (Florence), Italy in order to escape the black death plague that was rampant at the time. Well, three years after the first installment of this series came DECAMERON - TEN DAYS IN 100 NOVELLAS - PART II which continued the themes in musical form with some artists making a reprise and yet others entering the Musea equation for the very first time. Two years later, the label once again released a third installment in the series and in 2016 the various artist release DECAMERON - TEN DAYS IN 100 NOVELLAS - PART III was born.

Once again PART III is a monster of a release with 4 CDs stuffed full of lengthy symphonic leaning progressive rock tracks in thematic unison. Once again as well the packaging is exquisitely beautiful with period artwork gracing the cover and discs alike accompanied by a generous booklet with liner notes continuing the artistic flair as well as band photos and lyrics to those tracks that have them. While the Musea Colossus Projects tend to have the same artists on every most of their releases, PART III contains many new cast members but a few such as Nexus, Jinetes Negros and Rebel Wheel are back for another round. While these compilations are fairly global in nature, this one seems to have an extraordinarily heavy emphasis on Italian bands (12), USAmerican (7) with Argentina coming in at a distant third with only (3). While the music on these behemoths are always thematically connected, on PART III there is also a lot of continuity musically speaking which is one of the reasons i'm finding it less compelling than the other two installments of the DECAMERON series and unfortunately one of my least favorites of the entire Colossus Project that i've encountered.

Right from the first track, PART III sounds very different than its counterparts. It begins with an almost showtune sort of track titled "HeeBeeGeeBee" by UK artist Robert Webb. For the first listen, i had to actually check my CD to make sure that someone didn't slip a Broadway musical release into the jewel case by mistake. Nope, this was the right one alright. It just so happens that the entire 4.5 hours of playing time consists of such gleeful merry musical meanderings that could easily fit in the world of theatric drama and such. What's also noticeably different about PART III is that there seems to be a deliberate attempt to simplify the progressive elements with a lot more crossover potential than previously heard. There are more direct and bombastic ear wormy hooks reminiscent of classic Supertramp keyboard runs as well as more simplified guitar parts that often result in simply staccato chords. Garage prog anyone? Yeah, the material is considerably weaker on this one and i have to admit that not one single track jumps out and blows me away as these compilations usually do. I've been wondering if perhaps the different lineup of artists may be to blame but even the artist i'm familiar with don't crank out their usual quality material bursting with passionate delivery.

This one was fairly disappointing i have to say with the first two discs leaving me fairly cold. It does pick up a bit on Disc 3. The Rebel Wheel kick off with a strong track followed by some creativity of Taproban, S.A.L.U.E.N.A and Blank Manuscript which offer some of my favorite tracks of the comp but there are also silly tracks by Castle Canyon and Ozone Player that trade off spoken narrative with operatic vocals. There also seems to be a general lack of vivaciousness most of the tracks are fairly prog-by-the-numbers with lots of nods to 70s Pink Floyd not to mention that the vocals are mostly flat and unsuitable for the music. Not all is a waste of time. There are plenty of moments on this one that are indeed satisfying but nothing that exceeds the satisfaction of the first two DECAMERON editions. The whole affair seems rather sleepy and lazy and only fueling on half octane potential. Several listens later and not only has this not grown on me but actually has become quite irritating for the most part. It's not that the good parts are bad, it's just that most of the album cruises along on automatic pilot and nothing really jumps out and surprises. This may be an omen that the DECAMERON idea has been milked of all its possibilities and time to move on to other ideas. Three editions with bloated quadruple discs is quite the momental task. They succeeded quite well on the first two but the staleness has set in, at least for me. Worth the listen but probably not one i will revisit until several years pass by and i forgot what it sounds like.

In case you're wondering here is the whole list of Colossus Projects released so far:

Tuonen Tytar: A Tribute To Finnish Progressive (2000)

Kalevala - Finnish Progressive Rock Epic (2003)

The Spaghetti Epic - Six Modern Prog Bands For Six Seventies Prog Suites (2004)

Odyssey - The Greatest Tale (2005)

The Colossus of Rhodes (2006)

The 7 Samurai - The Ultimate Epic (2006)

The Spaghetti Epic 2 - The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly (2007)

Treasure Island (2007)

Giallo! One Suite for the Murderer (2008)

The Empire and The Rebellion (2008)

Dante's Divine Comedy Part I - Dante's Inferno (2009)

Dante's Divine Comedy Part II ? Purgatorio (2009)

Rökstenen - a Tribute to Swedish Progressive Rock of the 70's (2009)

The Spaghetti Epic 3 - The Great Silence (2009)

Tuonen Tytar-A Tribute To Finnish Progressive Rock Of The Seventies - Volume Two (2009)

Iliad: A Grand Piano Extravaganza (2010)

The Tales of Edgar Allan Poe: A SyNphonic Collection (2010)

Decameron - Ten days in 100 novellas - Part I (2011)

The Stories Of H.P. Lovecraft: A SyNphonic Collection (2012)

Decameron - Ten Days In 100 Novellas - Part II (2014)

DECAMERON - TEN DAYS IN 100 NOVELLAS - PART III (2016)