パティ・スミスとケヴィン・シールズ(マイ・ブラッディ・ヴァレンタイン)のジョイント・ライヴが2枚組CDで登場!パティ・スミスが2005年と2006年にロンドンのQUEEN ELIZABETH HALLで行ったポエトリー・リーディング/スポークン・ワード・パフォーマンスを2枚組ライヴ・アルバムとしてリリース!このライヴにはマイ・ブラッディ・ヴァレンタインのケヴィン・シールズがギタリストとして参加!! タイトルの「THE CORAL SEA」とはパティ・スミスが1996年にリリースした詩集に因んだもので、このパフォーマンスは彼女が親交の深かった写真家、故ロバート・メイプルソープに捧げる意味で開催されたもので彼の最後の闘病を表現した内容となっている。
タワーレコード(2009/04/08)
Q - 3 stars out of 5 -- "Shields favours atmosphere over melody, so Smith's words are the focus."
Mojo - 3 stars out of 5 -- "In this allegorical sea voyage to witness the Southern Cross, her delivery veers from hushed to strident but is always focused and intense."
Spin - 4 stars out of 5 -- "[Smith delivers] her poetry's surreal grace with sheer force. Here, she's captured twice in concert feverishly reading her phantasmagoric memorial to friend and artist Robert Mapplethorpe..."
CMJ - "It's a credit to Smith's legendary intensity that she remains gripping throughout both hour-long performances..."
Q (Magazine) (p.143) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "Shields favours atmosphere over melody, so Smith's words are the focus."
Rovi
Culled from a live performance at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall, this stunning recording meshes Patti Smith's incantatory reading of her long poem THE CORAL SEA with the beautiful guitar abstractions of My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields. The poem, published in book form in 1996, is a moving elegy to the late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, a close friend and former lover of Smith's.
Fittingly, Shields's music--a bit more subdued but no less powerful than his work with MBV--undulates and shimmers, suggesting all the majesty and pathos of the hydrosphere, and provides a strong musical undergirding for Smith's raspy spoken-word vocals, which slip into chant and song at odd intervals. Fans of both artists will be pleased, as they bring out the quietly intense best in each other.|
Rovi