Search - Dirty Three :: Ocean Songs

Awash in psychic landscapes

Michel Farmer | Peoria Illinois | 10/26/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Words can't possibly do this sad, beautiful record justice...and that is why the record doesn't include any. The Dirty Three's finest hour in my humble opinion."

Scared of the ocean no more.....

Shannon McDonald | Melbourne, Australia | 11/08/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This album was first played to me in a Cinema Studies class as support to the 1928 silent film 'The Wind'. A strange but effective choice considering the film's desert themes and the album's oceanic ones. The album has a loose structure, an improvised feel as the musicians grant themselves the freedom to play like its their last, their intimate knowledge of each other's style directing them effortlessly through this sublime musical trip. I have a special place in my heart for this album but happily concede that it is a little self-indulgent. Some of these tracks extend to around 14 minutes as the musicians' melancholic joy is shamelessly unleashed. And hey, who am I to judge indulgence of this calibre?? A beautiful, mesmerising album if you like it slow and sincere."

Sad Sea Songs

T. Lane | Groton, MA USA | 02/04/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"On this album, the Dirty Three showcase their most somber instrumental talents. Here, their music whispers across musical landscapes, somehow expressing more emotion than spoken words ever could. The music on "Ocean Songs" seems borne of a woolly, restless intoxication. It is a underlain with a meandering sadness and spilling over beautiful, dulcid atmospheres.



Beginning with the most forward and ethereal melody on the entire album, the wispy song "Sirena" is easily one of the saddest pieces. Followed by "The Restless Waves" and "Distant Shore," all uniquely beautiful, vibrant, the first three songs are somehow tied together in their echoes of romance and despair.



The music lives and breathes, and you become willingly captive, especially on the album's longer pieces, the sentimental "Deep Waters" and the ecstatic "Authentic Celestial Music." These songs, although rather indulgent, gain in emotional momentum right up to their end. "Ends of the Earth" calms the cumulative effect of the album with the beautiful addition of piano. The album, as a whole, is simply ethereal. It is a primal emotional energy that has been temporarily captured, but not tamed.



Truly this is the saddest and most epic material recorded by the remarkable three-piece band. The slow, casual guitars and jumbled drums might merely fill interesting space were it not for Warren's love for the expressiveness of violin. What might otherwise have been noteworthy background music pulls you in, and slowly rolls you around in the murk, sometimes sad and screaming, other times calm and brooding.



Key Songs: "Sirena," "The Restless Waves," "Authentic Celestial Music," "Deep Waters""