Unlike his breakthrough record Badlands, Dirty Beaches aka Alex Zhang Hungtai’s latest double album, Drifters/Love Is The Devil retreats from the otherworldly, mid-century realm of greased-back hair and leather jackets, and instead reflects on the irrevocable aura of his last two years as a itinerant vagabond restlessly touring Europe, North America, and the Asia Pacific. Hungtai’s aim on this record is not to fall into redundancy, fabricating successive AM rockabilly-induced smoke rings that were so deftly wafted on Badlands, but rather to encapsulate the emotionally alienating hallucinations that arise when you spend arduous amounts of time among strangers in unfamiliar cities and the vast and lonely distances that span between them.
Drifters may seem reminiscent of Badlands via looped drum machines surrounding reverb-caressed vocals from Hungtai on “Night Walk” and the bluesy, bar-room “I Dream In Neon” which certainly maintains the “sounds of the city” as it fades out in a ash-littered synth whisper, but it’s not until “Belgrade” where we are thrown off course as warbling synth lines coax us slowly away from the fluorescently lit crowds, into an alleyway at 5am where we lie down to sleep in a puddle for the night. Waves of modulated organ and bass conjure up bleak minimalistic storm clouds over the bustling capital of Serbia, and even while we’re tucked away in sleepless seclusion, Hungtai throws us right back into the world of monotonous drum machines and unintelligible yelps on “Casino Lisboa.”
Most of the tracks up until this point seem to look outward, harnessing the seemingly endless and mechanical energy of cities and experience held therein, but with “ELLI,” “Aurevoir Mon Visage,” and “Mirage Hall,” Hungtai begins an introspective and destructive journey, as the emboldened outlines of meaningful relationships and self-awareness start to bleed out of focus. As a result, percussion instrumentation escalates, while melodic structures begin to disintegrate, and we’re left with a vocalist that is unraveling more and more with every angst-ridden beat. Hungtai shouts across three different languages during the cluster of tracks as he attempts to locate himself: “Our house is always empty”; “ Aurevoir mon visage! / Hee! Hee!.” Nearing the end of Drifter, we see how Hungtai has lost the ability to dissimilate one city from the next; every place becomes a maniacal collage of pavement, people, mirrors, high-rises, memories, fire hydrants, signs.
Love Is The Devil begins as Drifters draws to a close on “Landscapes In The Mist” where a single street saxophonist leads the somnolent wanderer away from the dance hall and city square and into a foggy, colorless wilderness. Frogs and crickets are heard croaking, the roar of a far off train and cry of some specter wallow into the hollowness of mysterious landscapes.
“Greyhound At Night” will only make sense to you if you’ve frequented 3am bus rides between dimly-lit cities. Driven by ambient creaks and moans of machinery, the track rings out as a disassembled jazz number, painstakingly starting the second album which is far less neon than it is red-eyed and godforsaken. “This Is Not My City” breathes long, cinematic signs of alienation and forlornness. Hungtai is purposely manipulating various synth lines to simulate dizziness, sameness, as a wash of empty towns and cities float by, removed from any local awareness.
“Woman” is a pivotal track in what lowers the audience further into Hungtai’s portrait of unresolved loneliness. Sparse wavering chirps of synth take moth-like flight above buckling piano chords, and it’s not until another blipping synth enters the track that we fully become aware of huge sonic gaps that were previously occupied by drum loops. “Love Is The Devil” and “Alone At The Danube River,” if listened to attentively back to back (as they are ordered) will take years off of your life. The title-track is four minutes of sweeping synth pulses rendering a cavernously tragic below of unrequited love. “Alone At The Danube River” is the highlight of the entire record, and at seven and half minutes still doesn’t feel long enough. Hungtai cradles the loneliest electric guitar on the planet as he stands alone at a river outside of Belgrade, a place that does not listen to his music, a place that he does not attempt to get recognition or applause from. It is a lamentation. There are no words to sing anymore; there are no need for words. Each stroke of the hollow instrument has enough power injected in it to break your spine in half and enough foresight to question everything you’ve ever moved about the planet for. Soon after, Love Is The Devil is concluded with the trance-inducing “Berlin,” which totes a strange line of comfort and uncertainty, as Hungtai returns to the city he was calling home at the time.
If you listen closely enough, Hungtai is shifting his entire Dirty Beaches project right before our eyes. As he notoriously stated in reply to a negative YouTube comment on his “Love For The Devil” track released back in January, he truly doesn’t “give a shit about what peoples expectations are.” He was determined to make this emotionally naked and minimal record, if not only for his sanity’s sake, but he doesn't have to worry about letting anyone down because Drifters/Love Is The Devil is his most magnificent and indubitably complete work to date. Grade: A-
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You nailed this review! thank you