The project of
Alex Zhang Hungtai, Dirty Beaches' spanned low-slung, lo-fi, post-rockabilly to ambient instrumentals. Born in Taiwan,
Hungtai moved to Canada at an early age. Starting in 2005, he released a slew of albums, EPs, and cassettes on labels such as
Night People and
Fixture Records.
Hungtai's music is equally familiar-sounding and surreal, mixing a croon worthy of
Elvis or
Roy Orbison with
Suicide-like drum machines and a fondness for found sounds and hypnotic loops. He moved to
Zoo Records for his official debut album, Badlands, which was released in early 2011.
Hungtai remained busy, issuing singles on
Suicide Squeeze and a split with
Xiu Xiu in 2011 and 2012. He released the Water Park soundtrack on
A Records in March 2013 and the double album Drifters/Love Is the Devil that May. In 2014,
Hungtai announced that his album Stateless would be his last under the Dirty Beaches name. Featuring viola courtesy of Italian composer Vittorio Demarin and mixing by
Dean Hurley, Stateless was released in November 2014. ~ Heather Phares, Rovi