Mick Turner and Jeffrey Wegener, GOMA, 18 July 2008

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Whether they care or not, it seems unjust that Mick Turner and Jim White of the Dirty Three do not enjoy the same level of recognition - at least in Australia - as their bandmate Warren Ellis. While the latter's instantly recognisable violin is the voice of their instrumental ensemble, each man's contribution is both necessary to the band and outstanding in the field of his particular instrument. If pressed I would probably say Jim White's drumming is the most important puzzle piece but that's another post. Right now we're talking about guitarist Mick Turner: he of the minor pluckings, tender brushings and occasional overwhelming swells so integral to the Three.

Outside his most famous project Turner has put out a number of solo releases as well as collaborations with White under the name Tren Brothers. The Trens have occasionally acted as a kind of alt-country/post-rock Sly and Robbie, most notably as the band on Cat Power's best album Moon Pix. For this GoMa performace Mick is accompanied on drums by Jeffrey Wegener (The Saints, Laughing Clowns, Kuepper).

I arrive at the gallery just in time and it's easy to slip through the comfortably-sized crowd to the front, hopefully not just because I'm drunk. Turner and Wegener begin the set and every song thereafter tenderly. Mick trickles sounds into his loop pedal: a chord progression like a wandering horse; raspy bowed guitar strings; plucked notes like stars appearing in the sky; sometimes a melodica. Jeff dips his drummer's toes into this lapping lake gingerly at first: brushes on rims, tom rolls like tiny waves on the shore. Some songs crescendo spectacularly, others simply amble along. The melodies, though soon forgotten, are haunting as if Will Oldham turned into a guitar and sang songs of lament, praise and contentment.

When Wegener gets going and switches up to rods then sticks his individuality becomes apparent. Where Jim White's swaying drunk style complements Mick's free-to-say-the-least approach to rhythm by adding or omitting hits, scrapes and crashes before suddenly rejoining the beat, Wegener sticks almost stubbornly to a groove once he's chosen it, stretching or quickening his playing elastically but patiently until he matches whatever Turner is doing. Now that I've seen his approach to free-ish music I am more inclined to seek out the Laughing Clowns I've been putting off for a while now.

Having arrived too late to see any of the Picasso exhibition I am enthralled by the evolving backdrop of Mick Turner's paintings intercut with car window travel footage. Turner the painter has a voice almost as singular as his guitar playing - I didn't know until now that he painted the Dirty Three album covers. In terms of reference points his style and subject matter are somewhere between Chagall, Leunig, Nolan and the Australian painter whose name I can't recall that depicted a fiery spirit screaming over grasslands (how am I supposed to Google that?). Naked women with enigmatic smiles lie on giant kangaroos' backs, floating over eucalypts and Holdens. Everything looks like it's about to be set ablaze by the sun and everyone has big, piercing eyes, even the animals. Time-lapse makes apparent the similarities between the construction of a painting and Mick's layered-colours approach to music.

At the end of the set Turner spruiks his wares amusingly and I purchase a set of Art Cards and Blue Trees, a wonderful collection of 7's and EP's. If no one else likes a drunk at least performers and salesmen do.