Dirty Three
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Dirty Three | ||
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Background information | ||
Origin | Melbourne, Australia | |
Genre(s) | Post-Rock, Instrumental Rock | |
Years active | 1993–present | |
Label(s) | Touch and Go, Bella Union, Anchor & Hope Records | |
Associated acts |
Nick Cave | |
Website | http://www.dirtythree.com/ | |
Members | ||
Warren Ellis Jim White Mick Turner |
Dirty Three is an instrumental rock band, formed in 1993, in Melbourne, Australia by Warren Ellis (violin), Mick Turner (electric guitar), and Jim White (drums).
Their music has elements of folk melody, rock energy, and 20th century classical music. Their early albums offered many aggressive, ferociously emotional songs, but since their fourth album, Ocean Songs, Dirty Three have gradually shifted their focus towards a slower, arguably more melancholic, style of playing.
Dirty Three have released albums on Touch & Go Records and have toured with Sonic Youth, Pavement, Throwing Muses, Cat Power, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Devendra Banhart and Shannon Wright to name just a few.
Since 1996, Ellis has been a member of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Ellis and Turner have both released solo albums. In addition, Turner and White have released several EPs as The Tren Brothers, and appear as backing musicians on albums by Cat Power and Bonnie 'Prince' Billy. Turner is also an internationally exhibited painter with his own work gracing the covers of all of their major albums except Sad & Dangerous. He also runs the band's own record label Anchor & Hope. In 1999, Dirty Three joined forces with Low to record an In The Fishtank session for Konkurrent records; the result has been called "some of the best material either unit has produced."[1]
In late 2005, the band released their seventh major album, Cinder, which, though following in the spirit of Ocean Songs, drastically diverges from all of their previous works on several points. It was the first Dirty Three album since Horse Stories to feature vocals (those of Chan Marshall aka Cat Power and Sally Timms of The Mekons), though only on two of nineteen songs. The songs are also generally much shorter and more concise than their early work, which allows for the rather large number of tracks. Perhaps most notably, instead of the usual recording live technique, they opted, for the first time in their career, to record in the studio individually.
2007 sees a much anticipated live concert release on DVD, shot in Tokyo in HD by Taiyo Films with a multi-track sound record. Film director Darcy Maine also has completed a feature length documentary on the bands history to be released worldwide.
Contents |
[edit] Discography
[edit] Albums
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[edit] Singles and EPs
- Obvious is Obvious (split with Low) (1997)
- Sharks (1998)
- A Strange Holiday (7" split with Scenic) (1998)
- Ufkuko (1998)
- In the Fishtank (with Low) (2001)
[edit] Compilations and soundtracks
- Absolutely Live 1995 (compilation) (1995)
- Why Should the French Have All the Fun? (compilation) (1996)
- Songs in the Key of X (compilation) (1996)
- Recovery: Ready for Transmission (compilation) (1999)
- Homebake 3 (1999)
- Praise (1999)
- Lowlands (2000)
[edit] Types of Songs
When Ellis was asked in an interview if "Horse" from Horse Stories was a love song, he simply replied, "They are all love songs." [2]
[edit] External links and sources
- Official Band Site
- The Dirty Three's Record Label
- The Dirty Three at the Dwarf
- Discography
- Dirty Three Fan Page
- Warren Ellis of Dirty three performs a rare hometown show at the Prince of Wales, St Kilda, 12 January 2005
- The Dirty Three Mailing List
- Some Dirty Three Album Reviews
- Concert photos (2003-05-07) by Laurent Orseau
- Concert photos (2002-06-08) by Laurent Orseau