Donna Regina
Holding The Mirror For Sophia Loren
Karaoke Kalk

Donna Regina is not a female artist, but a duo from germany, namely husband and wife couple Regina and Günther Janssen. Four years after their The Decline of Female Happiness, Donna Regina return with a brand new album elegantly entitled Holding The Mirror For Sophia Loren. I guess that Sophia Loren has had a long line of personal dressers over the years. Maybe even her longtime (lifelong) spouse Carlo Ponti held her mirror a few times as well.

"Beauty is how you feel inside, and it reflects in your eyes. It is not something physical." (Sophia Loren)

The Donna Regina project has been on-goign for more than 20 years, since 1990, and Holding the Mirror... is their 12th studio album (their 7th album for Karaoke Kalk - they were formerly on the Strange Ways label). Donna Regina operate inside the classic and classy indie-elctronica-pop format, perfected ovr the years, presenting a nice blend of monotony, drama, and cathiness. They've got a nice musical facade, as well as creating music with texture. Donna Regina write and record appealing highbrow electro-pop music. Try to imagine Saint Etienne paired with Stereolab and Lali Puna, and you're somewhere near the big city alleys where Donna Regina drift and roam.

Holding The Mirror For Sophia Loren holds 13 tracks (mind you, there are two digital bonus tracks to be found, "Other Side" and "Hopeless Hope"), and the album clocks in at some 50 minutes (plus bonus tracks, of course). Except "Les claviers de couleurs" (sung in French) and "Escúchame" (in Spanish), all other tracks are written in English. The title track gets the party started in a most sober and tranquil way. The elegant "Les claviers de couleurs" is said to be inspired by the beautiful names of colours on the scale of Swiss-French architect, designer, and urban planner Le Corbusier (a.k.a. Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris). The music of Donna Regina sneaks, radiates, vibrates, twists and turns around and inside mysterious moods and colorful patterns, like with "Koyasan", via "I Wanna Know" (as well as its 'relative', or 'sequel', "I Know Now"), to "Escúchame", and the party-beat of "Gatsby". "In The Company Of Friends" and "Leaving" round off the album most elegantly, holding what's maybe one magical mirror.

Holding The Mirror... is the sound of medium cool electro-pop extravaganza. Come and join the urban vibe of Donna Regina. It's a gracious, cool, slick, stylish, and hypnotic musical mixture. It's an adventurous journey. Sophia Loren turns 80 this fall, but she's so full of grace and style I guess she'll be throwing quite a party. Maybe Donna Regina could reign the party's musical entertainment center.

Copyright © 2014 Håvard Rex