Though they're a small band--with only three members, that is--Australia's Dirty Three play music about big things. Are these songs really, as the title suggests, horse stories? (For that matter, was Ocean Songs really about the sea?) Well, the tunes don't gallop, or even canter. What they do is swirl and gouge and slope and crash, in part because guitarist Mick Turner has an impeccable sense of his instrument's mood-setting powers, in part because violinist Warren Ellis cuts through the air with long, thick-toned phrases, and in part because drummer Jim White holds the band together with sensitive, swishy percussion here and banging chaos there. This is proof positive of the jazz axiom that instruments can tell a story at least as well as language. And while this isn't equine stuff, generally, it's sure got the snort and the kick and the pull and the dogged strength of any four-legged wagon-pulling pal on earth. --Andrew Bartlett