by Christopher J. Lee
In the late 1990s, the Dirty Three released one of the most beautiful albums of the decade, if not widely recognized as such: their fourth LP, Ocean Songs. That 1998 recording engineered by Steve Albini at Electrical Audio in Chicago had Warren Ellis (violin, viola, piano), Mick Turner (guitar), and Jim White (percussion) plumbing the depths of a sound that seemed both avant-garde and ancient, excavated from a nocturnal seascape/dreamscape that felt both forbiddingly foreign and intimately familiar at once. The mournfulness of Ellis’ violin on the opening track, “Sirena,” pulled down and uplifted the listener in a melodic rhythm that, true to the album’s name, became tidal in motion as the song progressed. A later track, “Sea Above, Sky Below,” which added piano, imparted a similar despondency leavened only by the beauty that equally unfolded through the interplay of Turner’s restrained guitar, White’s understated backbeat, and Ellis’ soft-spoken violin that swelled with identifiable, if wordless, emotion.
All instrumental, it would be easy to call the Dirty Three slowcore or post-rock of some sort—the latter designation increasingly meaningless as of late. Ellis’s violin has likewise conveyed an alt-country, folk rock vibe to Dirty Three releases in a manner approximating Will Oldham’s early work, when he was recording under the moniker of Palace Brothers and its variations. Yet this label also doesn’t quite stick. With Ellis, Turner, and White known for their collaborations with other musicians like Nick Cave, Nina Nastasia, Chan Marshall, Bill Callahan, and Oldham, the Dirty Three have managed to create an exclusive space uniquely their own, with a sign hanging out front saying, Sidemen Only. Like a vocal-less, microcosmic, art rock version of the Band, the Dirty Three have demonstrated the strengths of replacing the frontman ideal in favor of minimalism and a more democratic approach to music composition.
As with their previous work, the Dirty Three’s tenth studio album, Love Changes Everything, constructs a mood and, by extension, an entire world. The usual signature features are still here: Turner’s expressive guitar that likes to play roughhouse or walk around amiably in the background depending on the song’s demands; White’s personifying percussion that paces like a detective with snare-drum anxiety at some moments, soothes with brushwork at others; and Ellis’ violin or piano that frequently serves as the lead, guiding the listener through different rooms of feeling, even when the same melodic line recurs. Lightly rehearsed and mostly improvised like their previous recordings, the Dirty Three play like a jazz ensemble with a rock veneer, and, taking a critical leap, this LP sounds like an implicit homage to John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme. I haven’t encountered this assessment elsewhere, though after listening to this album repeatedly, there are thought-provoking connections to be made.
Both recordings are concept albums structured by tracks that repeat the title of the album (e.g., “A Love Supreme, Pt. I (Acknowledgement)” and “Love changes everything I”), indicating a suite of songs that intentionally progress in the order listed and are meant to be listened to in like fashion. These albums aren’t ones to skip around with. Both recordings develop a theme of love, though the primary love at hand is not romantic love with another person, but love as a condition, a state of being in the world, in relation to a higher purpose or deity, something untouchable, but which can be articulated or grasped through the intuition of music. Inspired by a religious awakening, Coltrane composed A Love Supreme after a long period when he had suffered from alcoholism and a debilitating heroin addiction, which affected his relationships with other musicians whom he had collaborated with like Miles Davis. Notably, Coltrane recorded it sixty years ago this year. For sure, there are differences between these albums – on the surface, they sound musically unrelated – but it is difficult to disassociate their kindred spirit once this comparison is made.
It's been twelve years since the Dirty Three’s last release, Toward the Low Sun, and the first track on Love Changes Everything involves a bit of requisite throat clearing, the band finally getting back together: a wall of shimmering background noise that suddenly goes up in volume, followed by two beats from White’s snare drum, then a quick, reverb-heavy noodle from Turner’s guitar, with Ellis’ violin coming in shortly thereafter. The song picks up momentum as their instruments rediscover their identities and each other, what might be called a sound of reassembly. The second track, “Love changes everything II,” shifts gears to begin meditating on the title theme at hand. It is a song of defeat with Ellis’ piano expressing a melancholia that resembles that found on “Sea Above, Sky Below,” though perhaps even more so, without relief. One might think of this track as addressing earthly love – the loss of someone else, the end of romantic love.
The remaining four tracks surface from this initial state to ascend to new levels and understandings of love. “Love changes everything III” has the contingent sound of starting over, possessing a day-after tentativeness, a sense of rebuilding through repetition and accumulation. It is the quietest track on the LP. Track four begins with Turner’s guitar and then Ellis’ violin imparting a haunting quality that nonetheless becomes stronger and bolder as the song progresses, culminating in the end with a feeling of rebirth. Tracks five and six continue this energy of change and rediscovery with each reaching a climax and a shared sense of purpose, marking a turn toward a higher, more liberating notion of love. On the final sixth track, there is a slow gathering of instruments, involving a looping track of Ellis’ ethereal violin, Turner’s limpid guitar fills, White’s pulsating, arterial drums, and a barroom piano, also played by Ellis, that together build toward an ending with a concluding gospel progression, suggesting the idea of resurrection and a distant affinity in overall structure and theme to Coltrane’s masterpiece once more.
Again, this comparison should not be overdrawn – the instruments are different, the time signatures are dissimilar, and the contexts are unalike. Still, Ellis, Turner, and White are too intelligent to miss this potential analogy. They are also cunning enough to discretely avoid leaving any obvious fingerprints. The Dirty Three have often performed in a Freudian manner with Ellis articulating a foregrounded conscious mind and with White and Turner conveying an unconscious one in the background. Akin to an internal dialogue, their interplay can be conversational, supportive, or argumentative depending on the composition. Yet, across their albums, they always manage to come together to create an organic sound that is integrated while still retaining their individual instrumental voices. On this album, they have taken their improvisational music to yet a higher level. Like that cup of trembling at the end of James Baldwin’s, “Sonny’s Blues,” another story of addiction, the Dirty Three’s music on Love Changes Everything suggests the possibility of ordinary salvation, that redemption can only happen together, and, if you look and listen closely, may already be within reach.