Dirty Three
Whatever You Love, You Are

In this remarkable album, in my opinion the best of the three Australians, there are countless dark places and lagoons of feeling to navigate courageously: Warren Ellis's violin is wailing and shrill, never accommodating for the listener. It manages to enchant but never to pacify the soul of those who delve into the mellifluous currents of the Dirty Three river.

The first track "Some Summers They Drop Like Flies" is a tender, mournful waltz, embroidered on an abandoned track by a weary couple: the celebration of love chasing the dense overlay of violins, a sinuous and solemn enchantment. Splendid.
"I Really Should've Gone Out Last Night" is simple and narrative: a few decisive strokes on the skins and the violin seems to tell us, it becomes the narrator's tongue... perhaps it explains what happened on a solitary evening, perhaps it's a continuous lament in front of a dry, abandoned glass.
"I Offered Up To The Sky The Night Stars" is gentle cacophony: the sampled violin overshadows itself and plunges into a waterfall of words. Words: here too the narrative sense is very strong... everything pauses a little, the notes stretch after the race and throw themselves headlong into the furious wind. Ellis provides here an immense demonstration of emotional versatility: a few notes to illustrate a mood, a universal and shareable feeling, changing with his breath the spirit of the piece, which now becomes smoky and intriguing and then once again swift and flowing.
The strength of the Australian combo lies in the essentiality of the sound, three instruments able to enrich a simple melody like "Some Things I Just Don't Want to Know" smoothed over a sampling that seems to call from another room while, once again, the violin softly sings a limping lullaby.

Ellis is the devil playing the violin, anyone who has seen him in action with Nick Cave knows what I mean: a fury of technical skill and pathos, theatrical gestures and madness almost like he was the Jimi Hendrix of this ancient instrument. The collection of splendid tracks closes with "Lullabye For Christie" which is so transcendently beautiful it leaves you speechless and with misty eyes: the violin, barely touched, whistles a distant tune, through the mist the drums mark a slow, almost yielding march, and the strength of the interpretation rises with time; as if it were a return to the ranks of emotions after so much struggle.