There was something about the minimal dub-pop, Suicide-esque sound of Dirty Beaches (who happen to be another one of those plural one-man-band bands) that I found magical from the first minute I heard them/him/it.

I couldn’t quite figure out what it was until I’d listened to the tracks over and over for about a week. The music is a bit like a drug, in that it makes you crave it over and over again, but that wasn’t what I found mesmerising. It was the refinement, the just-so-ness of every sound and effect – as if each tiny aspect of the tracks had been considered for hours and hours before committing to it. The sort of consideration and perfection that you might associate with some 70s prog band, or The Shadow Ring or Prurient or someone.

Now I have no idea whether that is the case or not – I don’t know whether Alex Zhang Hungtai is a crazy mad perfectionist with pitch-perfect hearing or he just chucked everything together and got lucky a bunch of times. I’d like to think that the former is the case. This isn’t just more of that “lo-fi” (can we lay that term to rest already please?) bedroom dreamy-pop-drone stuff thats been filling up my iTunes of late, this shit is real and deep.

Mr Beaches has currently got a bunch of limited CDs out on Fixture Records, and some vinyl in the works. Check out his MySpace immediately for loads more tracks.

Oh, and before we go, that poster up there is for an all-dayer that we are curating in sunny Brighton. Sorry for the shameless plug but if you like the bands that we tell you about every week here then no doubt it will be your cup of tea.

Anyway, below is that jam.

Listen: Dirty Beaches, “Low Rider”

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JAMES IS DISGUSTING