So what do you get when you marry up a great independent record label with an independent and quite unique trio of Aussie instrumentalists? You get an amazing album called CINDER. You also get a supreme example of the radical difference between what the large record companies want you to hear on radio, and the very best that you have to discover for yourself. Now as long as you understand and accept this, the musical world is your oyster. I learnt this important lesson many years ago, and discovered the Dirty Three while listening to a 1998 Cat Power album. Backing Chan Marshall (aka Cat Power) on the album were instrumental displays that dazzled and obliged me to read the sleeve notes. Bingo! I then went on the Internet and acquired my first Dirty Three album entitled HORSE STORIES. It remains my favourite D3 album and after you buy this one you really must buy HORSE STORIES. Then you’ll tell your friends, “Hey, I’ve discovered this band called the Dirty Three and they’ll blow your mind, I promise you!” And that’s how really great music is discovered. Or you can take a short-cut and just log onto Shakenstir…

Listening to CINDER it’s hard to believe that Warren Ellis, Jim White and Mick Turner live apart in Paris, New York and London, occasionally getting together in some beach shack in Australia to map out their next project. And it’s also hard to believe because on record and live, the guys look and sound as though they live in the same pad. Warren Ellis (violin and other stringed weapons) explained, “Each of our albums is conceived in a different way, and this (CINDER) was no exception. After two weeks of rehearsals and a gathering of ideas, it was apparent we had a lot of material. In January we booked ten days in Sing Sing studios in Richmond, Melbourne, with Casey Rice (Tortoise) at the helm, and recorded all the tracks. Our approach this time was to load up the car with as many instruments as possible and then give every song what it needed.” The end result is 19 tantalizing shorter songs with, for the first time in seven albums, vocals, contributed by Chan Marshall and Sally Timms who Ellis explained, “Were in Melbourne playing gigs at around the time.”

The first track, Ever Since, opens proceedings at an unhurried pace and is characteristically D3 with White’s tumbling drum strokes; Ellis superb on what I think is a mandolin; super-glue melody and an ambience that mirrors reflections on life, perhaps aired in a beach shack on a sunny, windswept beach in Melbourne… Plucked strings introduce the next track, She Passed Through, that opens in the same unhurried way before opening out in the middle-eight to feature a host of instruments (including Ellis superb on violin) and one beautiful crescendo of sound. Utterly moving, and one can imagine a lady actually marching by…

I’ve listened to this album so many times and still cannot decide which are my favourite songs. Now this is a wee bit unusual because I can usually choose two or three from a D3 album, but not this time. They are all frigging amazing! They each have a story to tell; they each cause pause for thought; they each have a strong emotional pull. There is, however, one song which represents a departure from the ‘norm’, and that’s track six, Cinders, which rocks its heart out complete with bagpipes and other instruments I can’t identify. And it houses a melody and vibe so strong that it could be released as a single! Then just to bring one back down to earth, the next song, Flutter, almost moves me to tears.

This is an album that works at every level, and as Ellis observed, “In the past, we have tried to capture the band’s live potential and this time we figured to think about how we might perform the songs live later. The songs are much shorter, trimmed down, classic in proportion.” CINDER is a very accessible album and if you’re looking to dip your toe in more adventurous rock waters, this is the album to get. It’s a 70 minute emotional rollercoaster, and something of a contemporary musical masterpiece.

5/5