Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com
Showing posts with label Warren Ellis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Warren Ellis. Show all posts
Friday, August 30, 2024
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Monday, March 1, 2021
Thursday, April 30, 2020
Wednesday, October 9, 2019
Sunday, May 24, 2015
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Album Review: Dirty Three - Cinder
Dirty Three's seventh album, released in 2005, is a change from previous albums. The songs are shorter and more plentiful (nineteen tracks!), and are less dominated by Warren Ellis' violin. Rather it fits into the overall sound. Two tracks even feature vocals, but more of that later. Ever Since sets the tone for the album, an almost Morricone, Western feel with Ellis playing less manically but with grace and subtlety. She Passed Through and Amy drift by very pleasantly before Sad S€xy picks up the tempo a little. Mick Turner's guitar is perfectly pitched as Ellis' violin grows in intensity throughout the track.
Cinders' rattling guitars break the momentum a little, but the sprightly The Zither Player brings the album back on track. It Happened and Too Soon, Too Late have a lazy, on horseback feel, almost like Calexico, while the spooky Great Waves features Cat Power on almost hypnotic vocals, which work pretty well. Later, Sally Timms of the Mekons performs wordless vocals on Feral, while mixing it up further, Warren Ellis puts down the violin for elegiac piano on Last Dance.
So a fairly atypical Dirty Three album then, but a most enjoyable one.
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Album Review: Dirty Three
Dirty Three's self-titled second album, released in 1995, opens with an absolute epic, the 10 minute blaster Indian Love Song. It's fairly atypical in that it's less reliant on Warren Ellis' violin, instead providing a showcase for some serious guitar work by Mick Turner.
Following a peak like this is not easy. Better Go Home Now is a gloriously heavy guitar and violin workout, all done in less than 4 minutes! Odd Couple is moodier, Ellis swapping violin for accordion. Kim's Dirt is the centrepiece, a long, almost ambient, trance-like piece where not an awful lot happens.
After the violin swoops and squalls of Everything's F**ked, The Last Night saddles up with harmonica and heads off to the dusky outback before the final track, the blood and thunder of Dirty Equation, where the band really cut loose. It's stuffed full of pounding drums, frenzied guitar and crazed violin and is utterly brilliant. This album is definitely a good place to start with this band.
Saturday, December 28, 2013
Album Review: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - The Boatman's Call
Nick Cave released a stripped down, practically solo album, The Boatman's Call. Not quite Bad Seed-less, the prominence of Cave's piano relegates them to very much support act status. It opens with Cave crooning "I don't believe in an interventionist God" on piano ballad Into My Arms, a very familiar track followed up by the Doors-lite of Lime Tree Arbour, all doomy bass and creepy organ and piano.
The mood continues on People Ain't No Good, Cave sings ruefully of "to our love send a coffin of wood" over piano and Warren Ellis' deft violin. It's probably Cave's prettiest, most romantic collection of songs. Gorgeous ballads like There Is A Kingdom and Where Do We Go Now But Nowhere are the order of the day. Mick Harvey's achingly soft bed of guitars on (Are You) The One That I've Been Waiting For? really convey the longing contained in it.
Just when the album threatens to sink into over-sentimental wallowing, the strum with attitude of West Country Girl shifts the mood to Cave snarling about "her glove of bones at her wrist that I have held in my hand". Later, Harvey's guitar and Ellis' violin combine well on Idiot Prayer. It's all very... tasteful, if à little unvaried. Mostly light, with little shade. But it's an album where any of 12 strong songs could be singled out.
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Monday, September 3, 2012
Monday, March 5, 2012
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Album Review: Dirty Three – Horse Stories
Dirty Three are an Australian instrumental trio, featuring Warren Ellis’ at times unhinged violin playing ably supported by the tasteful guitar of Mick Turner and Jim White on drums.
This album, released in 1996 was their third, and is a real mood piece. After the tranquil opener, 1000 Miles, Sue’s Last Ride is an early highlight. Building up from Turner’s gentle guitar part, the music has plenty of space in it for Ellis’ violin to rampage through the song, quickening throughout the piece. Hope is more downbeat with hints of Arab Strap’s instrumentation in the guitars, but I Remember A Time When You Used To Love Me is a rollicking, sway-along romp, and the first indication that the band is capable of rocking out.
At The Bar sees the pace slacken once again before the furious rocker Red, which eschews subtlety from the start in place of pounding drums, bashed guitars and demented violin from Ellis at its core, and doesn’t let up.
Warren’s Lament is surely the centerpiece, it’s like a microcosm of everything Dirty Three do over the course of eight and half minutes, with an especially lonesome violin part. It finishes with the somber, funereal I Knew It Would Come To This, with Ellis’ violin appearing to reference The Smiths at one point.
A whole album of violin playing takes some getting used to but for those who enjoy instrumental music in the Mogwai vein, this should be investigated.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Top 10 albums of 2010
10. Warpaint - The Fool
9. The Phantom Band - The Wants
http://sacredcowpats.blogspot.com/2010/11/album-review-phantom-band-wants.html
8. Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - The Road OST
http://sacredcowpats.blogspot.com/2010/01/album-review-nick-cave-warren-ellis.html
7. Peter Broderick - How They Are
http://sacredcowpats.blogspot.com/2010/09/album-review-peter-broderick-how-they.html
6. Tindersticks - Falling Down A Mountain
http://sacredcowpats.blogspot.com/2010/02/album-review-tindersticks-falling-down.html
5. Neil Young - Le Noise
Who'd have thought that this feedback drenched solo album would be a return to form for Neil Young? Even when the noise is off for a track or 2, it works.
http://sacredcowpats.blogspot.com/2010/10/album-review-neil-young-le-noise.html
4. Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan - Hawk
Look past the dull title to another strong chapter in this pair's collaboration.
http://sacredcowpats.blogspot.com/2010/08/album-review-isobel-campbell-mark.html
3. Lloyd Cole - Broken Record
The comeback of the year. Edge is gone, but an addictively relaxed collection of country-rock.
http://sacredcowpats.blogspot.com/2010/10/album-review-lloyd-cole-broken-record.html
2. Sun Kil Moon - Admiral Fell Promises
An austere collection of icy finger picking, perfect for wintry mornings.
http://sacredcowpats.blogspot.com/2010/08/album-review-sun-kil-moon-admiral-fell.html
1. The National - High Violet
Not an original choice. But unignorable. Any doubts were dispelled by an incendiary live show. A collection of songs which on paper shouldn't instill euphoria but actually do.
http://sacredcowpats.blogspot.com/2010/05/album-review-national-high-violet.htmlWednesday, January 27, 2010
Album Review: Nick Cave & Warren Ellis – The Road (Original Soundtrack)
Having read the Road a few months ago in anticipation of the movie, I was pleased to discover that Nick Cave and Warren Ellis had recorded the soundtrack. I greatly enjoyed the book, and the music absolutely complements it. The music is all instrumental with piano and cello mainly featuring. It’s pretty grim, but in a good way. The title track is fairly typical of the album. Percussion is almost entirely absent, and a lone piano leads in to a wasteland-evoking string section. Much of the soundtrack is in this vein, though it is punctuated with some harsher tracks (The Cellar is a prime example) which are a little hard to listen to, and disturb the mood a little.
The better tracks feature the least percussion (Storytime, The Real Thing, Memory) and are quite simply mood pieces. And what a mood it is. It is the sound of a wintry landscape: beautiful, if a bit forbidding.
I also thoroughly recommend their compilation of soundtrack works – White Lunar, which features music from their soundtrack work for The Proposition and the Assassination of Jesse James, along with some obscure documentary work.
The better tracks feature the least percussion (Storytime, The Real Thing, Memory) and are quite simply mood pieces. And what a mood it is. It is the sound of a wintry landscape: beautiful, if a bit forbidding.
I also thoroughly recommend their compilation of soundtrack works – White Lunar, which features music from their soundtrack work for The Proposition and the Assassination of Jesse James, along with some obscure documentary work.
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