From the opening seconds of the Dirty Three’s new album Toward The Low Sun, it’s abundantly clear that Messrs Warren Ellis, Mick Turner and Jim White have well and truly got the bit between their teeth, after a period of uncertainty. A giddy, eddying mixture of White’s off-kilter drums, Ellis’ violin mumbles and scatters of Turner’s guitar noise, it’s indicative of the direction in which the Dirty Three’s best album in years is heading – that strange cloud of melancholy, inside which lurk golden pop songs. You can check the Quietus shortly for a full interview with Warren Ellis. Below, an excerpt where the bearded maestro discusses how the Dirty Three overcame a severe case of the writer’s block. Click here to pre-order Toward The Low Sun from the Bella Union website.
"We had got together on a few occasions and it didn’t feel like it had moved together from the last album that we’d done. I guess I was wondering if we’d said about as much as we could. When that happens, you can’t help but feel a bit spooked by it. But this thing that happens when the three of us get together and play live, this energy happens that’s very unique to the group, and we all still really feed off it, and really want to protect it and keep it going. Getting out and playing live certainly made us want to continue, and reminded us that we needed to work at it. We eventually reconvened in Australia and did a bunch of dates in Japan for one of Barry ATP’s events. We talked a lot there, and had this time to sit down and talk and were able to realise that that was the way back into it, to approach it with the element of risk that we always like to have when we play live. We went into the studio with very little, and tried to make it more challenging again, take more risks, and really open it right up." – Warren Ellis
