INDIE

Stateless

Dirty Beaches

(Zoo Music)

Four stars out of five

As Dirty Beaches, Alex Zhang Hungtai travelled the world, his raw, unhinged rock albums painting vivid pictures of dusty Americana (the motorcycle desert gang-worthy Badlands, from 2011, and last years double opus Drifters/Love Is The Devil), life in the far reaches of Asia (the Taiwan-themed Neon Gods of Lost Youth), and music dedicated to North American cultural curiosities (the soundtrack to Water Park, an ambient film shot at West Edmonton Malls indoor recreational facility).

While there have been collaborators, Dirty Beaches is essentially Hungtais sole vision, one constructed on a life that has spanned the globe: Born in Taiwan, Hungtai has also lived in Vancouver, Montreal, San Francisco, Berlin and Lisbon, among many other locales.

Stateless is a fitting conceptual farewell for Dirty Beaches, as Hungtai announced late last month that he was retiring the project and moving on to new horizons. Assisted by Italian composer Vittorio Demarin, this guitar-less, wordless body of work is an exercise in multi-layered ambient textures a far cry from his notoriously lo-fi guitar output. Brian Enos airport music, David Lynch and Stanley Kubrick film scores (especially the Gyorgy Ligeti material in 2001: A Space Odyssey), and Philip Glass (see: Koyaanisqatsi) immediately come to mind. (Perhaps fittingly, Lynch collaborator Dean Hurley handled the mix on Stateless.)

Recorded in Lisbon over the past year, Stateless conjures visions of highways seen from the vantage point of a landing plane, flickering neon signs lighting up the Shanghai skyline, waves crashing upon jagged rocks on the coast of California, and European nightclubs, stripped of their beats, filled with bodies flailing in silence.

Stateless exists, like Hungtai, in constant limbo, and as such it is the proper sendoff for an artist without borders or boundaries, standing on the edge.

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Album of the Week: Dirty Beaches Stateless