Alex Zhang Hungtai

The project of Alex Zhang Hungtai, Dirty Beaches' spanned low-slung, lo-fi, post-rockabilly to ambient instrumentals. 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.