Stream Dirty Beaches album Badlands and watch new video Speedway King (NSFW)

Dark, endless road, flashing pornographic images and glimpses of glaring neon lights – the definitely NSFW nightmarish new video for Dirty Beaches’ ‘Speedway King’ is a study in human depravity. Perfectly complimenting the gloomy churning and distorted guitar, paired with the yelping vocals of Alex Zhang Hungtai, the video has a similar lack of narrative and structure as the song – the image of the featureless road acting like a metaphor for all that is soulless, man-made and never-ending.

The garish Vegas images and the faceless pornographic figures in contrast seem to reflect on a nauseating and empty quest for satisfaction – an utterly joyless existence. It is like the projected thoughts of a mind which is as aware of a sickness within the human condition, as it is itself infected.

For a video in which sparseness is a distinguishing feature – in both action and colour – there is much depth here. Equally in Dirty Beaches music, behind a face of musical minimalism – there is a sense, not of sparsity per se – but of density and concentration – like the songs have been boiled down into a thick and dark, viscous musical treacle.

Badlands, the album from which ‘Speedway King’ is taken, was released last week via ZOO MUSIC and is available as limited edition black vinyl record. You can also stream the album in full HERE.

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You can catch Dirty Beaches live at two UK dates in July, in Manchester and London.

July
16 – Great Bridgewater Street, Manchester
19 – The Dalston Victoria, London