Jim White, drummer for the noted Australian cult band the Dirty Three, explores the gray areas of instrumental indie rock with an ounce of subtlety and pounds of invention.       Do you think that people project meaning onto drums in the way they do other instruments?” poses Jim White of the Australian post-rock instrumental trio the Dirty Three, casting the image of a grizzled, bearded sage from inside his Brooklyn, New York, apartment. “People say, ‘Serve the song.’ But what is a song? Are we not part of it? There are a lot of assumptions about the drums that don’t have to be made.” As a member of the Dirty Three for the last twenty years, White has often, and easily, subverted backbeat patterns in favor of a kind of lyrical rhythmic style. His mercurial drumming explores the nuances of the music he’s performing. Tapping a small […]

February 2013 Issue