Dirty Beaches

Alex Zhang Hungtai (traditional Chinese: 張洪泰; simplified Chinese: 张洪泰; pinyin: Zhāng Hóngtài; Wade–Giles: Chang Hung-t'ai; born 4 September 1980) is a Taiwanese-born Canadian musician, composer, and actor. He has released music under the stage names Dirty Beaches and Last Lizard.

Zhang released several EPs and three albums as Dirty Beaches on cassette-only labels before releasing his fourth full-length album, Badlands, in March 2011. Unlike his earlier work, Badlands includes his vocals on most songs. The album was long-listed for the 2011 Polaris Music Prize. Drifters/Love Is The Devil followed in 2013, pushing further into no wave, electronic, jazz and ambient territory.

In 2014, Zhang ended the Dirty Beaches project after releasing the instrumental album Stateless, on which he played the saxophone. As Last Lizard, he collaborated with jazz and improvisational musicians and released new solo pieces on SoundCloud, Vimeo and Vine. In 2016 he released the instrumental piano album Knave of Hearts under his own name.

Zhang has also recorded original film soundtracks for several films and documentaries, including Water Park (2012), Who Is Arthur Chu? (2017) and Godland (2022), in addition to directing music videos for himself and others.