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Dirty Three.
 Warren Ellis has just finished reading the David Meredith trilogy by George Johnston. The first book, 1964's 'My Brother Jack' introduced us to Jack Meredith, one of the most legendary characters in Australian literature history. That same charming streak of larrikinism courses through Ellis, himself a man who lived and breathed George Johnston and Sidney Nolan's Melbourne decades later.
"I mean, I'm 40 and I guess I haven't been living in Australia ten years and I dunno if it's got to do with that but I just found 'em so wonderful to read. They're really moving and I certainly got very nostalgic in a really good way."
Fourteen years and seven albums in, Ellis and his Dirty Three bandmates Mick Turner and Jim White are only in the same place when they're on tour or making a record. The new recording 'Cinder' finds Ellis adding more instruments to his bow, and not just because his recent multi-instrumental playing in The Bad Seeds has received high praise. "I never conceptualise what I'm doing or find a place for it," he says. "My wife bought me a piano last year and I've been loving playing that, and literally the year before that I bought a mandolin and a bouzouki just because I felt like I was going round and round in circles. I found it really good to actually have an instrument to play chords on and hear them resonate."
Speaking about the instrument that has made him famous, "I've been playing [the violin] more and more strumming and things like that. I'm always looking at ways of expanding the sounds of it. It's what we've all been doing within Dirty Three for the last 14 years: 'what can we do with the instrument this time?' I know Jim's constantly thinking about how he can make his [drumming] different. He's been touring with Smog and recorded with him for the last couple of albums and I think he's found a way of playing some kind of regular beat in his own way. He was much happier to sit on a beat this time, which you couldn't get out of him for love nor money before."
Guitarist Mick Turner (whose paintings again adorn the album) also plays bass and organ as on 2003's 'She Has No Strings Apollo', while his guitar sounds tighter, warmer and cleaner than before. He often steps back to allow Ellis' more rhythmic playing to lead the shorter-than-usual pieces that make up 'Cinder'. "In America we are actually gonna take somebody with us who plays fiddle, mandolin and bass just 'cause a lot of the stuff has melodies that interweave and part of it is this rhythmic thing that's going on... I would love to do it with even more people so that we could have a..." he pauses, searching for the right words "...big show going on. Just do it in a coupla places, y'know? Something like that where we could be quite different conceptually from a Dirty Three show, as such."
Ellis speaks fondly of the 'Cinder' session that took place early this year at Melbourne's Sing Sing Studios with Casey Rice. "We had 25 songs and we all chose which songs we like and that's what we've got here. It's very representative of the breadth of what we were trying to cover in the recording session. It was a very generous recording session and a very spirited session, and really fast, very productive. I think there's a thread to all this stuff too. It's linked in some way. That's certainly in line with what we've always tried to do, represent where we're at in a certain point in time."
Beyond the geographical distance between them, the rearing of their children and the rumours of their disbandment, Ellis, Turner and White continue to do what has established them as revered figures in Australian rock music. "There's no plan that you follow. Some people say that it was all very clear to them from the start but it still seems like some little miracle that we continue to make records... some little mystery that still presents itself."
Lenin Simos
 | 'Cinder' is out now through Anchor & Hope/Remote Control/Inertia. |
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