Alex Zhang Hungtai is a solo artist born in Taiwan, currently based in Montreal. Sweet 17″, the b-side from Dirty Beaches’ new True Blue 7″, pays mind to a simpler time when a brief glipse of gyrating hips on TV was enough to set people off (in a good way, or a bad way). The man behind Dirty Beaches, Alex Zhang Hungtai, carefully crafts his songs and it shows– they serve as a perfect tribute to primitive early recordings from Buddy Holly and Elvis Presley’s Million Dollar Quartet, among other surf-rock and rockabilly tender-hearts. Hungtai also clearly harbors loads of respect for the Great Rock Music Lineage, as exemplified by his idiosyncratic vocals (akin to those of the Cramps’ Lux Interior) and the way each song is compressed into a vintage-sounding form that aids in adding a tinge of density.
[via Cecilie Thomsen]
New Music United 