"One time I was bowing so hard I ended up getting a champagne glass spiked through my wrist," says Warren Ellis. "We recently pulled the drum kit out to rehearse in Paris and all my blood is still over it. That shows how hygenic we are."

There are only three of them and, yes, they are fairly dirty. But in their hands a violin, guitar and drums can say as much about life and love as a century's worth of lyricists.

Maverick instrumentalists who combine melodies of unearthly beauty with rock's most primal aspects, Dirty Three have been engaged on an infinite journey into the eye of their personal sonic storm ever since Ellis stuck a guitar pick-up on his violin with a rubber band. And 14 years on they continue to prove one of the world's most thrilling live acts.

Peculiarly for a group who, as Ellis understates, can generate "quite an anxious ride", Australia's Dirty Three started out as a backing band in a Melbourne bar. Having sketched out a couple of songs in Ellis' kitchen, the trio would play with a microphone stand which was made out of a mop and bucket and doubled as a percussion instrument.

"That's pretty much where the blueprint for Dirty Three started," says Ellis, "because we had a rather large space of time to fill and not many songs to fill it. Everyone in the bar was drunk out of their brains and we'd be in the corner going bananas, equally as inebriated. The spirit of it was very open."

Although there was an initial struggle to get their debut released ("people would say, 'Well I really like the band but you need a singer' and I guess there was something extreme about us too - we can get incredibly violent and hysterical"), Dirty Three have gone on to make a series of superb albums, at the centre of which is the Ellis' violin playing - a classically educated musician whose ferocious style nevertheless suggests a career of taming the violin rather than training himself.

"I seem to have developed quite an unusual relationship with the violin over the years," he says. "I mean, I was never particularly fond of it. God bless anyone's parents who put up with it for so long 'cos it is tough work to learn. But I do like it now and I feel good when I have it in my hand. You share these intimate moments with your instrument which you can't really put into words."

Dirty Three have just released their seventh album, Cinder, and last month played the Barbican's Don't Look Back Festival, performing in its entirety their seminal 1998 album Ocean Songs.

As the members all live on different continents and have other commitments (Ellis has been a Parisian for the last few years and one of Nick Cave's Bad Seeds for a decade), getting them together requires "more than a phonecall". But when it happens it is always, says Ellis, "a pleasure to dust off the cases".

"The last time it had been six months since we played together," he recalls.

"We were headlining this festival of 9,000 people. I stepped off the plane after 20 hours of in-flight Game Boy noises from my kids and we played one of the greatest shows of our lives.

"Somehow we've managed to continue working on this language which we've developed together. I guess it doesn't really count for much in the rock 'n' roll world. But we just keep trying to add some small thing to this enormous concept of music. The hunt is still on and the chase is still there."

Starts at 8.30pm. Tickets cost £12/£10, call 01273 647100.