Dirty Beaches Acclaimed double LP Drifters/Love Is The Devil & Remaining US Tour Dates

Did you catch them last night at Empty Bottle?!  Check back with ChiIL Live Shows like we vote in Chi, IL... early and often.   We will be reviewing Dirty Beaches' critically acclaimed double LP Drifters/Love Is The Devil shortly.

DIRTY BEACHES



Photo Credit: Anna Zelikova

Dirty Beaches' Drifters/Love Is The Devil has been one of the standout records of 2013 so far, receiving a Best New Music from Pitchfork and rave reviews across the board. The man behind the project, Alex Hung-Tai Chang, has asserted himself as one of the most dynamic and exciting artists making music at the moment.   

Now for the first time since the album's release on Zoo Music, he'll be touring North America with his full band. The show is electric and brings to life this complex and beautiful collection of songs as captured here in the recent video for Casino Lisboa.

Dirty Beaches has announced a full North American tour this fall in celebration of his acclaimed new double album, Drifters/Love Is The Devil, out now on ZOO MUSIC. He'll also be releasing a special, limited edition tape only version of the double record while on tour. Click Here To Stream Dirty Beaches' Interview on NPR's All Things Considered The solo project of Alex Huang Hungtai, Dirty Beaches has perhaps surprised his already familiar audience of fans with Drifters/Love Is The Devil, a double record that toes the line between his carefully refined rockabilly sound and one that leads more towards instrumental film scores, characterized by intensely beautiful and often melancholy emotion. The artist went on NPR recently to discuss the new double record and some of its influences and history, called "washy, dreamy rock music that often feels nostalgic."  Meanwhile, Pitchfork glowingly discussed the record in their Best New Music album review, calling it, "both sprawling and detailed, a sonic travelogue that takes the textural aspects of his work to impressionistic heights...Drifters/Love Is the Devil is more robust and eccentric than anything he's ever released before." Remaining North American Tour Dates 2013 / 09.12.13 - Empty Bottle - Chicago, IL #  09.13.13 - Firebird - St. Louis, MO # 09.14.13 - Exit In - Nashville, TN # 09.15.13 - Bottletree - Birmingham, AL # 09.17.13 - The Mohawk - Austin, TX # 09.19.13 - Rhythm Room - Phoenix, AZ # 09.20.13 - Echo - Los Angeles, CA # % 09.21.13 - The Void - San Diego, CA # % 09.22.13 - Bottom of the Hill - San Francisco, CA # % 09.24.13 - Mississippi Studios - Portland, OR # % 09.25.13 - Barboza - Seattle, WA # % 09.26.13 - Biltmore Cabaret - Vancouver, BC # %  * with Heathered Pearls, Xray Eyeballs ^ with Heathered Pearls & Eola (collaboration), Porcelain Raft, Andy Boay # with Sisu % with Chasms Assets / Dirty Beaches Video for "Casino Lisboa" "Love Is The Devil" on Youtube "Casino Lisboa" on Soundcloud "Landscapes In The Mist" on Soundcloud Pitchfork Best New Music Album Review Feature Interview with Stereogum Dirty Beaches Interview on BULLETT Interview on NPR's All Things Considered Feature Interview with Impose Alex Zhang Hungtai, AKA Dirty Beaches, started off as a one man band in 2005 in Montreal. A trans-pacific nomad and genre hopping sound smith, his past releases include drone instrumentals, film scores and a fascination with dissecting popular american music like blues, rockabilly, soul, RNB, and hip hop, often rendering them to the point where its no longer recognizable. His latest release, Drifters/Love Is The Devil, is a double LP that chronicles the musician's life on the road over the past 2 years,  as we follow him down the rabbit hole through the labyrinths of Berlin, Belgrade, Paris, and many other cities through heartbreak, rebirth and masochistic existential self reflection. Recorded between Montreal and Berlin in the winter of 2012, the double LP is separated only by aesthetics, as they are tightly woven together thematically as one conceptual piece. If 2011's Badlands was an exercise in exorcising past ghosts in a semi-fictional world, then Drifters/Love Is The Devil is a reflection on the fragility of reality. One, of the surface world in which he explores the night life of bright neon temptations dwelling in hedonistic irresponsible values, and the other of the inner world, one of remorse and lovelorn tragedies. As stated by the artist himself, "the most honest piece of music I've ever written." Drifters/Love Is The Devil is out now on ZOO MUSIC. Drifters Tracklisting / 01. Night Walk 02. I Dream In Neon 03. Belgrade 04. Casino Lisboa 05. ELLI 06. Aurevoir Mon Visage 07. Mirage Hall 08. Landscapes In The Mist  Love Is The Devil Tracklisting / 01. Greyhound At Night 02. This Is Not My City 03. Woman 04. Love Is The Devil 05. Alone At The Danube River 06. I Don't Know How To Find My Way Back To You 07. Like The Ocean We Part 08. Berlin  Quotes / "Both sprawling and detailed, a sonic travelogue that takes the textural aspects of his work to impressionistic heights." Pitchfork "Washy, dreamy rock music that often feels nostalgic." NPR "Ambitious new double album, Drifters/Love Is The Devil, stylishly reflects the dislocation of the road more traveled, hovering on the edge of dread...the oblique confessionals and elegiac atmosphere belie a certain cinematic grandeur." Interview Magazine "A double album steeped in grainy nostalgia that ventures further into the heart of film noir...an Oscar-worthy soundtrack waiting to happen." NYLON "Drifters sees Hungtai dabble in spartan post-punk, rickety industrial and devil-at-the-crossroads blues. Love Is The Devil, meanwhile, is an instrumental song-suite, alternately redolent of Angelo Badalamenti and Forest Swords." FACT "This double album is really good, and Alex Zhang Hungtai rules." VICE "It's a demanding, damn good and rewarding listen, one that squeezes your heart and head through shaking fingers." Filter "Laying down a rattling, distortion-heavy foundation while the man spits semi-intelligible venom from a mouth that seems caught in a permanent rockabilly sneer. There are echoes of both Tonetta and Brian Eno, with hints of the utter nothing that awaits us at the end of this crushing existence." SPIN "Drifters/Love is the Devil is a pair of poignant records. Hungtai’s ideas swing rapidly from beautiful to chaotic to completely atonal...Fortunately, Hungtai has let us into his world, no matter what darkness we might find there." Consequence of Sound "The gloomy and beautiful tracks on Love is the Devil may be pointing a way forward for Dirty Beaches, they may have been conceived as a spiritual complement to Drifters, or they may just be a temporary detour; whatever their intent though, their presence is a welcome addition to the Dirty Beaches catalog." Paste Links / Dirty Beaches on Facebook Dirty Beaches on Twitter Dirty Beaches Official Website ZOO MUSIC

TONIGHT at Empty Bottle: SISU, Ell V Gore & Dirty Beaches

SISU and Ell V Gore are playing with Dirty Beaches at The Empty Bottle tonight (September 12th).  For SISU, Sandy Vu of The Dum Dum Girls steps out from behind the kit to showcase her shoegaze take on electro and dreamy vocals. SISU sounds like a mix between Chromatics, Karen O vocals and m b v reminiscent washes.  SISU are releasing their debut LP 'Blood Tears', September 17th on Mono Prism and just premiered their new track 'Harpoons' on Brooklyn Vegan.  Credit Steven Perlin Toronto's Ell V Gore is the project of 24 year old Ell V who has been playing in weirdo punk and no wave bands for the past decade. He is also a man known around town for throwing some of the freakiest underground parties in the city. Ell V Gore just released the 'Sex Static' EP on Ben Cook of Fucked Up's label, Bad Actors.You can check out his latest video for 'Her Vicious' on Brooklyn Vegan.  SISU Premiere 'Harpoons' On Brooklyn Vegan, Debut LP "Blood Tears" Out September 17th On Mono Prism Records On Fall Tour With Dirty Beaches "Blood Tears" Track Listing: 1. Counting Stars 2. Cut Me Off 3. Harpoons 4. Electronic 5. Sinking Feeling 6. Let Go 7. Return The Favor 8. Shotgun Running 9. Sharp Teeth 10. Blood Tears   Remaining Tour Dates: 09/12 - Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle # 09/13 - St. Louis, MO - Firebird # 09/14 - Nashville, TN - Exit/In # 09/15 - Birmingham, AL - Bottletree # 09/17 - Austin, TX - The Mohawk # 09/19 - Phoenix, AZ - Rhythm Room # 09/20 - Los Angeles, CA - The Echo #% 09/21 - San Diego, CA - The Void #% 09/22 - San Francisco, CA - Bottom of the Hill #% 09/24 - Portland, OR - Mississippi Studios #% 09/25 - Seattle, WA - Barboza #% 09/26 - Vancouver, BC, Canada - Biltmore Cabaret #%   # with Dirty Beaches @ with Colleen Green ^ with Whirr, Nothing % with Chasms Praise For SISU: "Sandra Vu's band make gothy postpunk/shoegaze a la Lush or Slowdive (with a slinky dash of Siouxsie perhaps"-- Brooklyn Vegan "The Light Eyes EP's "Two Thousands Hands" channeled the dreary romance of Cocteau Twins, but this latest track hews closer to the post-punky rhythms and urgent pacing of the Cure's earlier output." -- Spin “Unleashing waves of dark, melodic rhythms and thudding percussion, SISU inject their warped aesthetic into the mold of ’80s synth-pop, resulting in a something more dense and evocative that still manages to maintain its carefree shimmer." -- Consequence Of Sound The dark-tinged, hazy shoegaze outfit sees Vu step out from behind the kit as the band's main songwriting force, building upon the Dum Dum Girls pop-base with layers of noise and abrasion." --Impose Magazine "combines mournful jangle pop of lead singer Sandra Vu’s other group Dum Dum Girls’ with some dance-ready goth-pop."--CMJ Ell V Gore Premieres 'Her Vicious' Video On Brooklyn Vegan, Announces Tour With Dirty Beaches "Sex Static" EP Out Now On Bad Actors (Founded By Ben Cook Of Fucked Up) Watch 'Lobotomy' Video On Pitchfork! Stream The "Sex Static" EP At Brooklyn Vegan! Tour With Dirty Beaches: 9/12 - Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle  9/13 - St. Louis, MO - Firebird 9/14 - Nashville, TN - Exit In 9/15 - Birmingham, AL - Bottletree Praise For Ell V Gore: "Surging out of the cave like the Birthday Party trying to cover Joy Division’s “Transmission”, [Lobotomy] strikes a masterful balance of barked psychosis and mechanistic precision, of primitive trash-can clang and synth-shocked futurism."--Pitchfork "Noisy, viciously catchy no wave from this wonderful Toronto weirdo" -- Noisey scuzzy, gothy post-punk you might expect given what you've read to this point. Fans of The Birthday Party, Wire, The Cramps and all things WIERD take note" -- Brooklyn Vegan "[Lobotomy's] a vicious single that sniffs the glue that built Ty Segall’s Melted and drills cascading rhythms into the back of your head" --Blare Magazine Photo Above Credit: Norman Wong Watch The 'Her Vicious' Video On Brooklyn Vegan! If Ell V Gore’s Sex Static sounds to you like it was made by four weirdos you’d meet at a pitch black, late night bizarre sex party beating their instruments half to death…well, that’s because it was. Toronto’s Ell V Gore is the project of 24 year old Ell V who has been playing in weirdo punk and no wave bands for the past decade. He is also a man known around town for throwing some of the freakiest late-night parties in the city (when he isn’t manning the microphone at strip clubs in between for cash).  Sex Static, their debut EP on Bad Actors, is an industrial punk rock beat-down. It is a visceral, dark, and loud late night album that sounds like Chairs Missing era Wire and The Birthday Party being filtered through a kaleidoscope of 90 shades of black and grey. Known around the city for their stunningly intense live show, the experience has translated well to record. The rhythm section is tight and malicious, the guitars and synthesizers scrape, scratch, and scream, and Ell V’s controlled Lux Interior-esque howl bounces off walls with the guttural intensity of Michael Gira. Weirdos, freaks, and late night delinquents – your party has begun. About Bad Actors: Bad Actors is a Toronto based boutique record label focused on bringing you the best from the next generation of the city’s best songwriters, bands, producers, and beat makers. The label is headed by Ben Cook aka Young Guv, a member of Fucked Up, and the brains behind several of Toronto’s most loved and respected musical acts including: No Warning, Yacht Club, Marvelous Darlings, and The Scuzz. His résumé also includes: starring in some of your favorite childhood TV shows, ghostwriting some of the catchiest songs amongst your most beloved guilty pleasures, and producing some of his city’s most promising musical acts. Needless to say, the Guv can bring the goods, and it was only a matter of time before he started his own label. Bad Actors will serve as a stepping-stone to bigger things for young acts, while offering them an opportunity to work closely with one of Toronto’s most creative and energetic musical forces. Upcoming releases on Bad Actors include records from industrial punk freaks Ell V Gore, guitar pop masterminds Actual Water, weirdo soul-goddess MCs Bizzarh, 17 year old producer extraordinaire Harrison and Cook’s own Yacht Club. Links: Ell V Gore Facebook Ell V Gore Tumbler Ell V Gore Twitter

INCOMING: Dirty Beaches at Empty Bottle 9/12 & Beacon at Bottom Lounge 9/18

Two incredible acts, Beacon and Dirty Beaches, are coming through Chicago this fall and they're rumored to be some serious standouts for the season.   So check 'em out live while you can.

With a Best New Music on Pitchfork for his outstanding new double record Drifters/Love Is The Devil, Dirty Beaches has again proven to be one of the most innovative and compelling artists today, and will be playing on Thursday, September 12th at Empty Bottle with a full band. Heard recently in an interview on NPR's All Things Considered, they call Alex Zhang Hungtai's compositions "washy, dreamy rock music that often feels nostalgic" while Pitchfork see it as "both sprawling and detailed, a sonic travelogue that takes the textural aspects of his work to impressionistic heights." In a recent interview with Stereogum, they write that the record is "equal parts beautiful, heartbreaking, and (occasionally) terrifying," an apt description for his fascinating new video for "Casino Lisboa."

Beacon and Shigeto will be co-headlining a fantastic tour this summer, playing Bottom Lounge on Wednesday, September 18th with support from Nightmoves. A Brooklyn-based male duo, Beacon released their debut album, The Ways We Separate, on Ghostly earlier this spring to much acclaim, with Pitchfork writing, "Mullarney's voice is light, but it's grounded with an earnestness that is strengthened with each new instrumental flourish." An intoxicating blend of R&B and electronic grooves, The Ways We Separate captures smooth, sensual rhythms and lays them atop silky vocals and deep basslines, coming together into what Exclaim call "one of the most compelling and authentic-sounding albums of the year." Having toured with How To Dress Well, Gold Panda and Matthew Dear, Beacon put on a stellar live show and are sure to impress alongside Shigeto's vivid, beat-heavy electronic sound.

DIRTY BEACHES Photo Credit: Anna Zelikova North American Tour Dates 2013 / 09.04.13 - Societe des Arts Technologiques - Montreal, QC # 09.05.13 - Church of Boston - Boston, MA #  09.06.13 - Bowery Ballroom - New York, NY # 09.08.13 - Rock & Roll Hotel - Washington, DC # 09.09.13 - Johnny Brenda's - Philadelphia, PA # 09.11.13 - The Garrison - Toronto, ON #  09.12.13 - Empty Bottle - Chicago, IL # 09.13.13 - Firebird - St. Louis, MO #  09.14.13 - Exit In - Nashville, TN #  09.15.13 - Bottletree - Birmingham, AL #  09.17.13 - The Mohawk - Austin, TX #  09.19.13 - Rhythm Room - Phoenix, AZ #  09.20.13 - Echo - Los Angeles, CA # %  09.21.13 - The Void - San Diego, CA # %  09.22.13 - Bottom of the Hill - San Francisco, CA # % 09.24.13 - Mississippi Studios - Portland, OR # % 09.25.13 - Barboza - Seattle, WA # %  09.26.13 - Biltmore Cabaret - Vancouver, BC # %  * with Heathered Pearls, Xray Eyeballs  ^ with Heathered Pearls & Eola (collaboration), Porcelain Raft, Andy Boay  # with Sisu % with Chasms Alex Zhang Hungtai, AKA Dirty Beaches, started off as a one man band in 2005 in Montreal. A trans-pacific nomad and genre hopping sound smith, his past releases include drone instrumentals, film scores and a fascination with dissecting popular american music like blues, rockabilly, soul, RNB, and hip hop, often rendering them to the point where its no longer recognizable. His latest release, Drifters/Love Is The Devil, is a double LP that chronicles the musician's life on the road over the past 2 years, as we follow him down the rabbit hole through the labyrinths of Berlin, Belgrade, Paris, and many other cities through heartbreak, rebirth and masochistic existential self reflection. Recorded between Montreal and Berlin in the winter of 2012, the double LP is separated only by aesthetics, as they are tightly woven together thematically as one conceptual piece. If 2011's Badlands was an exercise in exorcising past ghosts in a semi-fictional world, then Drifters/Love Is The Devil is a reflection on the fragility of reality. One, of the surface world in which he explores the night life of bright neon temptations dwelling in hedonistic irresponsible values, and the other of the inner world, one of remorse and lovelorn tragedies. As stated by the artist himself, "the most honest piece of music I've ever written." Drifters/Love Is The Devil is out now on ZOO MUSIC. "Drifters/Love is the Devil is a pair of poignant records. Hungtai’s ideas swing rapidly from beautiful to chaotic to completely atonal...Fortunately, Hungtai has let us into his world, no matter what darkness we might find there." Consequence of Sound "The gloomy and beautiful tracks on Love is the Devil may be pointing a way forward for Dirty Beaches, they may have been conceived as a spiritual complement to Drifters, or they may just be a temporary detour; whatever their intent though, their presence is a welcome addition to the Dirty Beaches catalog." Paste Links / Dirty Beaches on Facebook Dirty Beaches on Twitter Dirty Beaches Official Website ZOO MUSIC Drifters Tracklisting / 01. Night Walk 02. I Dream In Neon 03. Belgrade 04. Casino Lisboa 05. ELLI 06. Aurevoir Mon Visage 07. Mirage Hall 08. Landscapes In The Mist  Love Is The Devil Tracklisting / 01. Greyhound At Night 02. This Is Not My City 03. Woman 04. Love Is The Devil 05. Alone At The Danube River 06. I Don't Know How To Find My Way Back To You 07. Like The Ocean We Part 08. Berlin  Quotes / "Both sprawling and detailed, a sonic travelogue that takes the textural aspects of his work to impressionistic heights." Pitchfork "Washy, dreamy rock music that often feels nostalgic." NPR "Ambitious new double album, Drifters/Love Is The Devil, stylishly reflects the dislocation of the road more traveled, hovering on the edge of dread...the oblique confessionals and elegiac atmosphere belie a certain cinematic grandeur." Interview Magazine "A double album steeped in grainy nostalgia that ventures further into the heart of film noir...an Oscar-worthy soundtrack waiting to happen." NYLON "Drifters sees Hungtai dabble in spartan post-punk, rickety industrial and devil-at-the-crossroads blues. Love Is The Devil, meanwhile, is an instrumental song-suite, alternately redolent of Angelo Badalamenti and Forest Swords." FACT "This double album is really good, and Alex Zhang Hungtai rules." VICE "It's a demanding, damn good and rewarding listen, one that squeezes your heart and head through shaking fingers." Filter "Laying down a rattling, distortion-heavy foundation while the man spits semi-intelligible venom from a mouth that seems caught in a permanent rockabilly sneer. There are echoes of both Tonetta and Brian Eno, with hints of the utter nothing that awaits us at the end of this crushing existence." SPIN

BEACON

Photo Credit: Will Calcutt

Press / "Mullarney’s voice is light, but it's grounded with an earnestness that is strengthened with each new instrumental flourish." Pitchfork "Massagingly minimal R&B." FADER "Mullarney’s slight tenor neatly fits Gossett’s knack for electronic groove." Consequence of Sound "Beacon manage to craft one of the most compelling and authentic-sounding albums of the year." Exclaim! "They fuse the deceptively sweet melodies of R&B with an intoxicating undercurrent of darkness." KEXP Co-Headlining Fall 2013 Tour with Shigeto / 08.29.13 - Brighton Music Hall - Boston, MA * 08.30.13 - Johnny Brenda’s - Philadelphia, PA * 08.31.13 - Bowery Ballroom - New York, NY * 09.03.13 - Brillobox - Pittsburgh, PA *  09.04.13 - U Street Music Hall - Washington, DC * 09.05.13 - Asheville Music Hall - Asheville, NC * 09.06.13 - NV - Knoxville, TN *  09.07.13 - Cosmic Charlie’s - Lexington, KY * 09.08.13 - Zanzabar - Louisville, KY *  09.10.31 - Mahall’s - Lakewood, OH *  09.11.13 - Bug Jar - Rochester, NY *  09.12.13 - Le Belmont - Montreal, QC *  09.13.13 - The Garrison - Toronto, ON *  09.14.13 - Laneway Festival - Rochester Hills, MI !  09.18.13 - Bottom Lounge - Chicago, IL #  09.19.13 - Miramar Theatre - Milwaukee, WI #  09.20.13 - The Frequency - Madison, WI #  09.21.13 - 7th Street Entry - Minneapolis, MN #  09.22.13 - Bourbon Theatre - Lincoln, NE #  09.23.13 - Larimer Lounge - Denver, CO #  09.25.13 - Kilby Court - Salt Lake City, UT #  09.27.13 - Decibel Festival (The Crocodile) - Seattle, WA @  09.28.13 - Electric Owl - Vancouver, BC # %  09.29.13 - Holocene - Portland, OR # %  10.02.13 - The Jambalaya - Arcata, CA #  10.03.13 - The Independent - San Francisco, CA #  10.04.13 - Echoplex - Los Angeles, CA #  10.05.13 - Casbah - San Diego, CA # % * with Heathered Pearls  ! with Matthew Dear, ADULT., Heathered Pearls  # with Nitemoves  @ with Lusine,  Dauwd,  Nitemoves  % with Phaeleh The Ways We Separate Tracklisting / 01. Bring You Back 02. Feeling's Gone 03. Between The Waves 04. Drive 05. Overseer 06. Late November 07. Studio Audience  08. Headlights 09. Anthem 10. Split In Two Thomas Mullarney and Jacob Gossett, aka Brooklyn duo Beacon, introduced themselves to the world with the No Body and For Now EPs, both released last year on Ghostly International. The EPs were united by minimalist, R&B-influenced instrumentation, and also by a lyrical theme, with both serving as meditations on the darkness that underpins the most intense of human emotions: love. The duo's debut album The Ways We Separate both consolidates and develops these ideas. The album focuses, as the title suggests, on the idea of separation — both within the context of relationships and in a more intimate, psychological sense. As Mullarney explains, "The narrative contained inside The Ways We Separate deals with two kinds of separation: one where two entities grow apart, and the other where we grow apart from ourselves. Over the course of a relationship, the two sometimes happen together, one being the result of the other." Desires, passions and regrets are central to the songs on The Ways We Separate, which take a variety of perspectives to construct a nuanced reflection on the album's central theme. 'Between the Waves' draws a clever analogy between relationships and soundwaves falling out of phase: "I know all the ways we separate/ Where we start to fade at different frequencies." 'Overseer' catalogues a parting of the ways with discomfiting clarity: "Isn't it fine?/ Taking it slow?/ Watching you watch me walk out your door." And album closer 'Split in Two' explores how the extremes of love and loss can take you far away from being the person you thought you were, making explicit the connection between the two ideas of separation: "What I'd do for you?", sings Thomas Mullarney, "Split myself in half/ Divided into two." Musically, The Ways We Separate finds Beacon working with a richer sonic palette than ever before —as Gossett says, "The production on this album is much more expansive than anything thing we’ve done thus far. We spent a lot of time exploring new gear and experimenting with how to pull a wide range of sound out of various instruments. Some of the key sonics that shaped this LP are analogue synthesis, lots of heavily processed guitar work, and vocal layering/processing." While the abiding mood remains that of late-night introspection, the production draws from elements of hip hop and a wide gamut of electronic music, marrying intricate beats and subtle textures to honeyed pop melodies that belie the album's conceptual depth. Rarely has bleakness sounded so pretty — this is a record that's deceptively, compellingly beautiful, an exploration of a place both discomfiting and darkly seductive. Links / Beacon Official Tumblr Beacon Official Bandcamp Beacon Official Facebook Follow Beacon On Twitter Ghostly International