By Sami Martasian

Alex Zhang Hungtai AKA Dirty Beaches just self released five songs in a Bandcamp album called “Neon Gods Of Lost Youth.” Along with the album, he posted a small note saying the following;

Here are 3 previously unreleased tracks written roughly around 2006-2012. These are all tracks written with Taiwan in mind…Musically speaking these are all b-sides that never made the cut on “night city”, “badlands”, double feature” etc, but after a recent visit to Taiwan rekindled the idea of this forgotten, outdated “imaginary homeland” as I got deeper into reading on the topic of Diaspora. As a result, I decided to self-release this compilation of music on the last 2014 Asia tour as a CDR in hopes of connecting with the listeners from Asia, and Taiwan especially. 

Tracks like “neon gods & funeral strippers” and “廟街” were previously released on Clandestine Records and Spacebridge (Russia tour tape). But they are all apart of this collection that sprung from childhood memories, folklores (about the haunted Xinhai tunnel) and fictional characters in “廟街” that were a tribute to teenage delinquents in 80’s/90’s Taiwan/Hong Kong blockbuster gangster films that I grew up watching. Damn those movies were good… 


Dedicated to the lost memories of youth and Taiwan. 



Sincerely, 

Alex Zhang Hungtai 
May 22, 2014 – Lisbon, Portugal.

Dirty Beaches has some upcoming shows in Europe, stay tuned for some tour dates close to you.