aaamusic | On 17, Dec 2011

Legendary instrumental trio Dirty Three will boldly break cover in March 2012 with a remarkable new album, “Toward The Low Sun“, on Bella Union records, plus an intensive live schedule of headline shows and festival appearances.

 

Toward The Low Sun is the product of the most ceaselessly creative period of the band’s career. In the 6 year’s since the release of their previous album “Cinder”, Jim White, Mick Turner and Warren Ellis have been relentlessly creating music in different permutations and locations around the globe. The artists they have performed and recorded with is testament to the high regard in which they are held. Warren resides in Paris, though is regularly to be found touring with the Bad Seeds and Grinderman or working with Nick Cave on soundtracks for such films as The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Proposition and The Road. Jim is based out of Brooklyn but endlessly tours the world, recording and/or performing with Cat Power, Bonnie Prince Billy, Nina Nastasia and PJ Harvey, whilst Mick lives in Melbourne where he has developed a fine reputation as a visual artist and released the Blue Trees album alongside the occasional Tren Brothers release.

 

However, even amidst this frantic activity and incessant creativity a return to the mothership was inevitable. “Toward the Low Sun” is a cacophonyic explosion of influences and attitude that has the energy and urgency of a first release. There is an energy and a raw excitement evident from the first electrifying opening moments through to the album’s finale. In Warren’s words, “Dirty Three has always been about the way we play together and feed off each other. We wanted this one to be a return to the more improvised and instinctive approach of the earlier recordings”. And indeed Toward The Low Sun sounds like a first ever recording, a punk avant-garde art-jazz record! And for all their incredible music of the past, the Dirty Three have never seemed more relevant. Live they remain a force unto themselves. Women faint and men weep openly.

 

Don’t shade your eyes… Look Toward the Low Sun and you will know once again the burn of the Dirty Three!