Alex Zhang Hungtai is influenced as much by filmmakers as fellow musicians.

[xrr rating=3.5/5]Finding solid footing can be a challenge with Dirty Beaches. That would appear to be the Taiwan-born Canadian artist’s entire point. After numerous EPs, instrumental albums and other releases on cassette-only labels, Alex Zhang Hungtai broke through with 2011’s moody lo-fi Badlands, a critically acclaimed record that allowed the man behind the moniker Dirty Beaches to finally ditch the …

It’s appropriate that Badlands, the debut LP from Dirty Beaches, plays out like a soundtrack to an imagined ’50s road film. After all, the man behind the recording, solo performer Alex Zhang Hungtai, has spent most of his life in motion, whether it’s calling various places home in Canada or consistently touring overseas. This sense of disconnection, of not having …

Dirty Beaches Badlands Rating: 4.0/5.0 Label: Zoo Music

The El Mocambo, which sits in the heart of downtown Toronto, is probably best known for hosting the Rolling Stones back in ’77 for two shows, the material of which was later used on their Love You Live album. It’s a venue steeped in rock and roll tradition; the dive bar atmosphere and glowing, neon palm tree sign that marks …