Biography
Alex Zhang Hungtai created the Dirty Beaches project, which moved across a range from gritty, lo-fi post-rockabilly into atmospheric instrumentals. Born in Taiwan, he relocated to Canada while still young. From 2005 onward he issued numerous albums, EPs, and cassettes through Night People and Fixture Records. His recordings blend the recognizable with the uncanny, pairing a vocal style reminiscent of Elvis or Roy Orbison with drum-machine textures in the vein of Suicide alongside a taste for sampled noises and repeating hypnotic patterns. He signed with Zoo Records for his first proper full-length, Badlands, which appeared in early 2011. He stayed active, placing singles on Suicide Squeeze and sharing a split release with Xiu Xiu across 2011 and 2012. In March 2013 he put out the Water Park soundtrack via A Records, followed that May by the double album Drifters/Love Is the Devil. During 2014 he declared that Stateless would mark his final recording under the Dirty Beaches moniker. The album includes viola contributions from Italian composer Vittorio Demarin and was mixed by Dean Hurley before its November 2014 release.
Albums
Singles
