Love Hurts

Born in Taiwan, Alex Zhang Hungtai has made Toronto, Honolulu, Vancouver, and Montreal his homes, and now it's Berlin where the soundscape artist will rest his head, possibly for the next year. His move there last month was fuelled by his want for a change of scenery as a result of a personal issue, he reveals. “I just ended a five-year relationship, so I just wanted to move to a different city, you know, where I don't speak the language and kind of start new.”

Since shifting to Berlin, Hungtai's recorded two albums to deal with the hurt. There's one instrumental, and another with vocals that integrate his trademark noir beats and fuzz that have forever attempted to emulate the mood of his idol, Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-wai. Love Is The Devil and Drifters are both due in the coming months, on the back of Dirty Beaches' previous records Night City (2010) and Badlands (2011).

With the entirety of the instrumental Love Is The Devil being written in a few weeks in December as Hungtai dealt with his private crisis, the record takes on the gloomy feel of his state of mind. As his verbatim tweet back on Thursday 3 January informed: “Just submitted 'love is the devil' to @zoomusic666 and the cover art as well”, before adding, “A lot of blood & tears went into this instrumental LP”. There was also the tweet the following day that continued the despair: “Was actually crying in the studio alone in Berlin. 5am. One take. #emo #pit  #bottom #mellotron”.

“I was having a really rough time there,” explains Hungtai, “I pretty much went cold turkey in the sense that I sold all my stuff, gave possessions away to friends and packed [for Berlin] like I was going away on tour, like really minimal. I didn't want anyone to find me, and I just found it all cathartic.”

Drifters, meanwhile, is an electronic-based album, recorded with an expanded three-piece that includes Bernardino Femminielli and Shub Roy with drum machine looping, synths, guitar and vocals logged throughout.

“The idea of Drifters is definitely a nighttime record, and conceptually it's a reflection of life on the road and being in different cities all the time,” says Hungtai.  “Drifters has really got this sabotaging a reality kind of subtext… I don't want to say, like, druggy,” he laughs. The word 'hypnotic' is offered for Hungtai to run with instead, which he does. “Yeah, it is hypnotic and is me translating all of that, which is pretty much my life of the past two years,” he confesses.

It's clear that this melancholia in the Dirty Beaches armoury has forever stemmed from a genuine place. Brutally honest and refreshingly rousing, Hungtai's early days singing vocals in a metal band, his early morning hours spent as a video clerk in a porn store working the graveyard shift from midnight until 9am, his upbringing in Taiwan and adoration for auteurs David Lynch and the aforementioned Wong Kar-wai have all aided in sculpting the performer's symphony.

“I'm just more naturally drawn to this melancholy,” admits Hungtai. “I was in Croatia on tour recently and people would come up and say, 'Oh, are you okay, you look really sad!'” he chuckles. But it's an undulating wave of emotions for Hungtai. “[A lot] of times in reality [which subsequently translates into the music] I'm neither happy nor upset – more neutral.” It's a curious balance for Hungtai, this 'sad and beautiful world' he subsists in, and it has to be this way otherwise the ramifications would be dire.

“I'm trying to justify everything because if I don't, then I'll be in this really deep depression trying to make sense of my life,” he attests.

Dirty Beaches will be playing the following dates:

Friday 8 February - Perth International Arts Festival, Perth WA
Sunday 10 February - The Tote, Melbourne VIC
Monday 11 February - FBi Social, Sydney NSW