I have loved listening to The Dirty Three from the first time I heard their music.
This contribution, Toward the Low Sun, is no exception. The closest thing to improvised jazz in a rock form, it enters the soul through enlisting the brain. In the same way that absorbing un-metered beats and swirling notes in the very best of extemporised music does (it’s as if the notes are travelling through the musician as they’re playing) listening to this syntax of sound invites the mind to dance. A wonderful spool of sounds and lines and unclear rhythms, it’s the mesh that needs unravelling, the maze that needs walking, the terrain that needs to be covered. And, as you follow the bridges, and keep up with the disparities, as you catch the multitude of tonal chains and flutters, and feel the roll of percussive drums, you are in a visceral gateway. Soak up the nourishment, the harsh urban drill, the macabre perpetual eerie lilt. Go here to feast on some of their other albums: Ocean Songs, Horse Stories, and Cinder.
