Through a hybridizing of Link Wray guitar wail, motorcycle gang ruggedness, Elvis cool, and 1950's asian film music, arises Alex Zhang Hungtai, aka, Dirty Beaches.Dirty Beaches is a musical oddity, not easily described to your run-of-the-mill music listeners. At once mellow and unnerving. The name Dirty Beaches is itself a kind of paradox that melds the austere beauty of tropical locales with that harsh pang of reality one finds when a vacation paradise turns out to be just another urban garbage dump. The music sends you back to a deteriorating 1950's coastal town in Japan where people spend their nights drinking away their pain to slow-swooning & menacing jazz, and where motorcycle gangs beat around town looking for dope and pussy.
I've been fortunate enough to hang with Alex, the man behind the music, twice now as he's come through Chicago on tour. He seems to emit a vibe of coolness usually reserved for "The Wild One"-era Brando. His travels have brought him around the world and currently situated him in Montreal. His blog further compliments the aesthetic style of this contemporary amalgamation of lo-fi minimal rockabilly.
In short, you must check this stuff out!
myspace.com/dirtybeaches
dirtybeaches.blogspot.com
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