Dirty Three to Release ULTERIOR MOTIVES, Share "Better Go Home Now"

Ahead of their UK & EU live return this autumn, Dirty Three have announced the release of Ulterior Motives, an album of demos and live radio recordings, due out November 6th via Touch and Go Records in North America and Bella Union in the UK/EU. Originally available in 2012 as a limited edition CD, sold exclusively at the band's live shows, Ulterior Motives is a rare and revealing glimpse into the early years of Dirty Three, now receiving a welcome new lease of life. Recorded in the band's formative period, these demos and radio performances capture Dirty Three at their most raw, ragged and gloriously unrestrained.

To accompany today's announcement Dirty Three have shared 'Better Go Home Now', recorded live at Sydney's JJJ Radio studios in 1994, shortly after the release of Dirty Three. By then, the band had been playing relentlessly and was getting tighter, louder and heavier — something immediately apparent in this ferocious version of the track.

Four of the LP's recordings — 'Sue's Last Ride', 'The Last Night', 'Everything Is fed' and 'Indian Love Song' — were recorded live in the band's small rehearsal space before they made their self-titled debut, as the trio of Warren Ellis, Mick Turner and Jim White worked out the songs in real time. Highly improvised and instinctive, they offer a vivid snapshot of the band's earliest live performances.

The album's final track is 'Deep Waters', recorded at Mick Turner's house after the band returned to Australia from their first overseas tour. Here, the trio are once again feeling out a song that would ultimately become part of Ocean Songs, offering a fascinating glimpse of the music in the process of taking shape.

Dirty Three have long been regarded as one of the most electrifying live bands around. These recordings show exactly why.

Dirty Three formed in Melbourne in 1992, when Warren Ellis, Mick Turner and Jim White began making music that seemed to have little interest in conventional boundaries. Guitar, violin and drums became their vocabulary, drawing on folk, blues, jazz, rock and improvisation, but producing something that belonged entirely to them. The early recordings, including Sad & Dangerous (1994) and the self-titled Dirty Three (1995), captured a band still discovering just how far that vocabulary could be stretched. Horse Stories (1996) expanded the possibilities, while Ocean Songs (1998) revealed the extraordinary beauty that could emerge from their seemingly unruly approach. Whatever You Love, You Are (2000), She Has No Strings Apollo (2003) and Cinder (2005) continued that journey, each finding different ways to balance composition, improvisation, noise and silence. After Toward the Low Sun (2012), the band eventually returned with Love Changes Everything (2024). But these recordings remind us that the essence of Dirty Three was there from the beginning: three musicians listening, trusting and taking the music wherever it wanted to go.

Tracklist

1. Better Go Home Now (Live Radio)

2. Indian Love Song (Demo)

3. Everything Is fed (Demo)

4. The Last Night (Demo)

5. Hope (Live Radio)

6. Sue's Last Ride (Demo)

7. No Stranger Than That (Demo)

8. Deep Waters (Demo)

Dirty Three UK & EU Autumn Tour

28th October - Geneva - Alhambra

30th October - Oslo - Cosmopolite Scene

31st October - Stockholm - Debaser Strand

4th November - Berlin - Columbia Theatre

6th November Cologne - Gebaude 9

7th November - Kortijk - Sonic City Festival

8th November - Utrecht - Le Guess Who? Festival

10th November - London - Electric Ballroom

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