Dirty Three Speak About Their Return

Photo Courtesy Of: Dirty Three

Dirty Three‘s newest album, Toward the Low Sun, is the first new album from the minimalist, Australian band in seven years. In their absence, Ellis and company have been busy with various projects, including collaborations with Nick Cave and Will Oldham.

Warren Ellis, violinist for the instrumental band, has kept himself thoroughly busy collaborating with Nick Cave on several movie soundtracks, with more still to come. He’s also been an active member of both the Bad Seeds and Nick Cave’s Grinderman project.

“I’ve done some theatrical things with Nick as well, and Jim was out playing with Will Oldham and Bill Callahan and Cat Power, and Mick had been painting, I think. We’ve all been doing stuff. It’s good to sometimes step back from things,” Ellis said.

When asked about Dirty Three’s delay on making another album he said, “Other things have been going on, and we tried to make a record a couple of times, and it just didn’t happen. We spent those times to sit back and wonder what it all means, and I think we realized that the important thing is that we wanted to keep the band going.”

It’s normal for a band to take time off. Sometimes it’s to pursue other projects, deal with family affairs, or just take a break and let the musical inspiration revamp itself. Seven years, on the other hand, is an extremely long time for a band to not release anything. The band has, however, played live shows at one time or another on various continents in the seven years they’ve been missing in action.. Ellis has made a point to make it known that Dirty Three was never on a permanent hiatus.

“Seven years is long enough to justify a fucking comeback tour in some band’s eyes. You see these groups getting back together and I can’t even remember when they split up, but you think, ‘No, surely it can’t be a reformation, it’s like six or seven years ago that they stopped,’ and they are greeted with open arms. It’s just tragic. Maybe we should have shut up and then reformed and then put an album out. I’ve got it all wrong. I’ve been talking about the continuing dialogue and all that, and it just makes me look like a dick now.”

[exclaim]