The Dirty Three

Through whatever deluge, backlash, copycatization, and nostalgia there’s been for post-rock, shoegazer, and exclamation-mark-pop, Australia’s Dirty Three has claimed a niche as both progenitor of these genres and as a group of musicians unafraid to toy with the fringes of their craft. Now that their newest LP, Cinder, has seen the light of day and the flashlights of critics, the horizon has opened up wide for Jim White, Mick Turner, and Warren Ellis. Hailed as a new direction for the band, Cinder still walks tall over its sonic ilk.

So, CMG metaphorically sat down with multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Warren Ellis to see what was shaking.

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CMG: Where are you all hailing from now (this second, and, well, residentially)?
Warren Ellis (WE): I am in San Francisco about to play a show. I live in Paris, France, when I am not on tour or working. Mick is living in Melbourne, Australia, and I believe Jim is living in New York. Now I am on a plane en route to Chicago.

CMG: So, then, what prompted you to get together now? Just a feeling? An urge to do something different? Contractual obligations?
WE: We get together when we feel it might be time, we have no contracts, maybe we should. Generally, things are pretty complicated getting together, and these days we require a lot of planning. Given that we all are involved in other musical projects, and we all like to have a life outside the band, and we live on three different continents, the fact that we still feel the need to create music together speaks for itself. When we do convene, it is important that we have ideas. Without them, the whole thing derails very quickly. We need a starting point, no matter how small. We don't really function as an improv band. Songs don't appear from nowhere. I guess we work like any other group. You get back what you put in. Work seems to be the key. When we finish a recording, each of us needs to feel that it has moved somewhere before we put it out.

CMG: The new album is, despite the amount of tracks, shorter, more concise, and downright cleaner than a lot of fans might expect. Is this a "stepping forward" even if it's a step toward a grander studio sound you might expect from less eclectic and proficient musicians?
WE: First up, we have never ventured into the studio with trying to read fans expectations in mind. I think our fans would be happy to hear that. Our approach is always dictated by the music and the band, what do we need to do to get to the heart of the song. I think we have always tried to capture, in the studio, the sound of the instruments, and the very nature in which we play together. This is indeed an old fashioned idea, and the only way we know how to function as a group. Indeed, that is one of the things that has propelled the band. It’s at the very core. This album seems to me like an album we could have only made now, at this point in time in the band’s life. Before that, attempting something like this was not an agenda, we always let the music take us, and were never interested in structuring things too much. I guess we wanted to see how it would affect the language, and that is only something you can do with a history and experience. Taking risks has always been high on our agenda as a group; failing is what leads us toward the light.

CMG: Why this new approach? Building the tracks from the ground up, not worrying about how they'll manifest on stage: how do you maintain the signature Dirty Three vibe of live, improvisational almost-chaos?
WE: It’s what we wanted to do. There is possibly a lot more freedom in this record than would seem apparent. Anyway, we are under no obligations or rules to anyone but ourselves.

CMG: Have to quickly ask about the vocals. Why start now, with this album? What did Chan and Sally add to the songs that you wouldn't have been able to get otherwise? (By the way, speaking of vocals, "Time Jesum Transeuntum..." with Nick Cave has been blowing me away since, like, middle school. Goosebumps every time your violin gets louder towards the end, Warren.)
WE: I guess “why not” is the answer. When we were in the studio we decided to give each song whatever we thought it needed, really open up the sound of the band. Each of us brought whatever we could play to the session, and the overdubs were very free and open. I think we recorded 24 songs in 5 days, and recorded all the overdubs in 3 days. It was fast and furious. I kept hearing a woman’s voice on “Feral,” and Casey knew Sally Timms was in town so she came in. Chan's name came up during the recording, and it just happened. For sure the vocals put the instruments in a different place in the mix, from that where they normally are with our band. But when we put it all together it seemed to fit, so we thought, let's do it. Maybe we will do more of it. Who knows. I like that X Files track you are talking about.

CMG: I read about a show you had, recently, in London where Nick Cave performed all of Ocean Songs with you. Why Ocean Songs now, when it seems to be part of a completely different phase and time for the band (even though it's only seven years old)?
WE: We were asked to perform it by the organizers of All Tomorrows Parties, in the UK, and we thought it seemed like a good idea. I don't think time had anything to do with the spirit of the proceedings, it wasn't like the albums had to be 20 or 30 years old to be included in the festival. They asked groups who they liked, and to play the album they liked. It was actually fantastic to play the whole album, more fun than I would have imagined. Playing with Nick Cave was wonderful; he really fitted in with the way we play. I think it’s the most successfully anyone has ever played with us. It’s been good playing old songs lately, reinventing them, giving them a new life.

CMG: Considering the way Cinder was recorded, you wouldn't expect much thematic consistency as far as the layout and structure of the album are concerned.
WE: Why not?
CMG: 24 songs, I dunno, seems difficult. Yet, the title is apt, because of the way the songs build, fanning, fluttering, glowing, shrieking, and then eventually burning down. Um, were you going for anything like that? How does the idea of an album hold up, for you guys, under new recording techniques?
WE: No, we didn't have such concrete or formed notions when we went into the studio. A lot of that seems to come after the fact, it’s one of the great things about making music. We did want to make things shorter and concise, that much is true. Beyond that, we set out to do what we always do in the studio, capture how the language has developed, at that point in time.

We worked a lot before we went into the studio to try and achieve this new found structure. I like your description of the album, I think other people make better sense of music I have been involved with making than myself. I am too far into it to be objective. I don't listen to my own music for my own pleasure, I listen to other people’s music for that. I am happy with the recording and I stand by it

CMG: As far as producers go, you've worked with Fabrice Lor, who's worked with Yann Tiersen on the Amelie soundtrack and, now, with Casey Rice. Why the change?
WE: We always use a different person each record, usually determined by the geography of where we are going to record.
CMG: What did Fabrice bring to your projects and what has Casey been able to do with the new record?
WE: I think the evidence is obvious in the recording. They are two different sounding albums, two different people, that is what you would expect. The recording with Fabrice was very fast and was intended to be that way, 2 days in a venue in Paris, capturing the live aspect of our playing, and it was recorded on a digital recorder. He arrived with a case on the Metro, and set it up in an hour. I really loved working with him; mixed it in his bedroom, mastered on his laptop. With Cinder, we decided to use tape, analogue all the way down the process. Mick even delivered the Two track mixes personally to LA for John Golden to master. I have enjoyed working with all the recorders we have worked with: Steve Albini, Lincoln Fong, Mick Turner, Phil McKellar. Horse Stories was a disaster waiting to happen.
CMG: Just based on Rice's work with Tortoise, he seems to have a knack for huge sounds based on very limited parts. He knows what "beef it up" really means. It's a great strength of Cinder.
WE: I think Casey got some great sounds out of the studio, sounds very true to my ear. The larger instrumentation adds to the beefiness of the sound you talk of, and bass alters things drastically, sonically speaking. Certainly recording on tape influenced the sound.

CMG: So, what's with all the female-named songs? Amy, Christie, Doris, Kim, Sue, even "Sirena"... has this been a conscious thread? I know families have been started and such for you guys, but seriously, was "Poon Village" as applicable a label name to have in the beginning as I fantasize it to be?
WE: I guess we have never written songs about men. I don't know the answer to this one.

CMG: One last thing: We have this thing here at CMG where each writer gets to submit a rating for albums they're not specifically reviewing, and that rating gets compiled into a "combined rating." Editor Scott told us it started with a Dirty Three album long ago. You almost got a coveted 100%!!! How does that feel? We've never handed out one of those before.
WE: Do we get a prize? (Ed.: No.) Well, that's very sweet of you to tell me this. Nice to know people like what you are doing.