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The Dirty ThreeCinder Anchor & Hope/Remote Control/Inertia While veteran Australian band Dirty Three is best known for its live set up of Jim White's drums, Mick Turner's guitar and Warren Ellis' violin, past albums have featured piano, organ, accordion and most recently bass. On 'Cinder', the band's seventh record, Ellis plays five instruments. For the first time there are also vocals.: Sally Timms (Mekons) sings wordlessly on Feral while Chan Marshall (Cat Power) sings actual lyrics on Great Waves. Marshall's breathy intonation comes as a pleasant surprise, but that is just a tiny part of the whole. 'Cinder' is the band's most percussive record, though that's not to say White's drums rule it. Turner and Ellis are more rhythmic with their strokes while White has redefined his drumming, flitting between his trademark free percussion to more stabby junkyard clonks. There are more songs than ever here, 19 to be exact, one of which is adapted from Ellis' Hungarian fiddle-playing hero Felix Lajko (the propulsive The Zither Player). On Doris we hear spirited bagpipes and weaving Mediterranean riff cycles while Flutter hearkens back to the classic sounds of 'Horse Stories'. The romance is still there; the sounds remain pure. The mandolin and Irish bazouki are most welcome but it's the classic drums, guitar, violin that once again defines Dirty Three's singular sound.  |
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