Dirty Three

Like Tortoise, Gastr del Sol, and, later, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, the Dirty Three helped reinvent the language of indie rock, their ragged and ecstatic instrumentals expanding the form’s sense of possibility in the mid-‘90s. Guitarist Mick Turner, drummer Jim White, and violinist Warren Ellis were busy members of the fertile Melbourne scene in the ‘80s, shuttling in and out of assorted scabrous bands. Their collective reputation grew quickly after they formed in the early ‘90s, their savage and unhinged shows in Australian pubs leading to an international record deal and major tours. Horse Stories and Ocean Songs and Whatever You Love, You Are established them as a truly great improvisational act, reframing the terms of a power trio by adding absolute punk gusto to music that sounds a little like jazz, a little like a string band, and a lot like nothing else.

Turner, White, and Ellis have become in-demand players on their own in the last 30 years. White is a premier session musician, working with the likes of Bill Callahan, Cat Power, and PJ Harvey. Ellis is the wild-eyed, wild-bearded counterpart of Nick Cave. And aside from his own consummate solo records, Turner has worked with Will Oldham and Courtney Barnett. But on 2024’s unstoppable Love Changes Everything, their first album in a dozen years, The Dirty Three proved that their vocabulary and chemistry have only expanded. The album’s sixth and final untitled movement is music of pure rapture, the three old friends coalescing in the last half with a roar that sounds like love, beauty, and heaven all at once.