Audiovision From Test Magazin Detember 12 2013

Third EP Songs from the Psychedelic Time Clock follows with religious reworkings of the early garage and '60s psych sound. Beginning with the loving homage to the genre "The Little Record Store Just Around the Corner," the band rides a Seeds/Count Five-inspired riff and rumble while vocalist/songwriter Kevin Kinney sings about finding psychedelic records in the welcoming arms of the local record shop…

'Panorama of American Piano Music' is a comprehensive survey of 20th century piano works, beginning with Ives’ “The Alcotts” movement from the 'Concord Sonata' (1912) through Lou Harrison’s 'Summerfield Set' (1988). Every decade is represented with works from between those years. Pianist Yvar Mikhashoff (1941–93) was a master at presenting marathon concerts on a single theme. The 'Panorama' was one of them, exploring the remarkable diversity of 20th century American music, from serialism to minimalism, populist to avant garde experimentalism, short works for amateur pianists to virtuoso pieces. Never before has such a survey of piano music been represented.

Even though she is a celebrated operatic star with many brilliant coloratura roles in her repertoire, Diana Damrau is also a versatile performer in many other styles of vocal music, including concert arias, art songs, pop standards, and songs from musicals and movies. Because she embraces such a wide range of material with affection and technical ease, she is able to move gracefully between the worlds of Viennese operetta, Broadway show tunes, and music from Disney films, with only the slightest indications from her well-supported vocal production and crisp diction that she is much better known for her performances of Mozart, Donizetti, Verdi, and Strauss.

The soprano Diana Damrau stars in the operas of Mozart, Verdi, Rossini, Donizetti and Strauss, but Forever is the ‘soundtrack of her life’ in the form of much-loved numbers from operetta, musicals and the movies – including Die Fledermaus, My Fair Lady, West Side Story, The Phantom of the Opera and The Little Mermaid. “This music shows a side of me that many people don’t know yet,” she says. “These tunes are great art, because they are associated with unforgettable moments in everyone’s lives.”

EMI Classics is pleased to release the 10th annual 3CD set of highlights from the Progetto Martha Argerich in Lugano, “the delightful festival where youth meets experience and both benefit” (Gramophone). The Times described Argerich’s Lugano Festival as “community music-making on a deluxe scale, with performers and listeners mutually uplifted by music’s wonders”. The set is being released in anticipation of the Festival’s 2013 season. Reviewing the 2011 Live from Lugano release, Nicholas Kenyon wrote in The Observer, “There are not many reliable annual treats among classical CDs these days, but the series of live recordings from Martha Argerich's Lugano festival are now a highlight of each year.”