When you reach out to Alex Zhang Hungtai of Dirty Beaches for a curated playlist, there’s a pretty good chance that what you’re getting back will be the most unique, loud, gritty and fascinating batch of sound you’ll ever experience. Alex is a Taiwanese-born, Hawaiian-raised, Montreal-living man of the world and his band Dirty Beaches is an inspired, sonic explosion of noise and pulse and drone and beat and it will not calm or quiet down for anyone. Here, in this batch of “things he’s been listening to this year,” he doesn’t disappoint. This isn’t the soundtrack to your next dinner party, this is a journey — a worldly, anxious, obnoxious and utterly mind-altering curation that demands total immersion.

Here is Alex of Dirty Beaches’ exclusive playlist for What Youth, that’s too original even for Spotify (had to utilize YouTube). Tell your ears we’re not sorry.

Track List:
1. 39 Clocks: “Cold Steel to the Heart (and it beats no more)”
2. Florian Kupfer: “Untitled B-1”
3. Adova + Akoma
4. Brain Bombs: “Drive Around”
5. Belton Sutherland: “Blues #2” (1978)
6. Einsturzende Neubauten “Berlin Super 80”
7. Ibby burns Italian passport in front of police station
8. John Coltrane Impressions 1961
9. Popol Vuh: “Why do I Still Sleep?”