At their best, Dirty Three can sound like they fall apart in an instant. Listen to “Ember” way, from 2005's extended Cinder, seems to oscillate forever, as if Warren Ellis' violin was about to stumble into the canyon created by Jim White's raging drums. Or consider how Ellis and guitarist Mick Turner escape the void while cheering their strings during “Red,” from 1996's Breakthrough Horse stories. An unusually expressive musical trio, these three long-time Melbourne friends have always used the tension between their respective playing to cultivate collective feelings of annoyance or ecstasy, boredom or wonder, anxiety or amusement. In doing so, they have often suggested that some elaborate mobile hangs from the ceiling of an art museum, its three jewels connected only by rusty wire, constantly in danger of crashing to the ground. I hear the thrill of them keeping it together.
On Love changes everything, the Dirty Three's first album in a dozen years, those corroded wires finally snap, letting the pieces crash to the floor and reorient themselves into new relationships. And they do: Ellis, White and Turner have never sounded so alternately tight and loose, so united and shapeless, capturing an emotional ambiguity that drifts between hope and despair. Abandoning their usual evocative song titles in favor of a suite of numbered tracks that often flow in and out of each other, the Dirty Three have made not only their most absorbing album but also their most open to interpretation. It's a compelling case study of how a veteran band, each member approaching or over 60, can evolve – to leave, once and for all, preconceptions and self-perceptions and just meet where they are.
The Dirty Three emerged in the early 90s from exuberant youth squalor, playing long hours in Australian bars to crowds who found them confused or polarizing. But international attention, especially in the United States, became their passport. They toured stubbornly and collaborated unprofitably. White and Turner joined Cat Power for 1998 Moon Pix. Ellis teamed up with another expat, Nick Cave, in a fruitful relationship. As the years went by, the Dirty Three themselves became more focused, as if the band was a repository for a certain subset of sounds and ideas for musicians who were otherwise busy doing many things—painting and making great solo records, playing with Bill Callahan and dozens of others, who became a score-writing Bad Seed.
