Alex Zhang Hungtai has announced Orion/Mother, a new double album due June 19 on American Dreams. The New York-based Taiwanese-Canadian artist, musician, and actor has shared two preview tracks: Sidewinder, the opener from Orion, backed with the title piece from Mother.
The release is Zhang’s second project of 2026, and he describes the two records as an alchemy of past and present, sampling home recordings made with some of New York’s finest improvisers and composing on top of them. The material emerged from two weeks of full days in a rehearsal space during the dead of a long, brutal New York winter — a period Zhang has described as one of intense personal transition. “The major contributor to the completion of this double album,” he says, “is the removal of doubt.”
Inspired by Butch Morris’ conduction method of directing improvisation, Zhang revisited recordings he had made with a rotating cast of New York improvising musicians — including percussionist Che Chen, Korean gong resonator and experimentalist Leo Chang, clarinetist Madison Greenstone, flautist Laura Cox, cellist Lester St. Louis, noise artist Kwami Winfield, and tap dancer Melissa Almaguer — using Ableton to cut and match sessions into an ad-hoc ensemble. Over these live samples, Zhang improvised on trumpet and other instruments, his trumpet becoming the “grounding force” and conceptual narrator across both records.
Of the two preview tracks, Zhang says: “Both tracks share a common theme: an exploration of the primordial state within the unconscious that leads to a confrontation with what is unspoken and hidden. The symbolism is neither negative nor positive, but a guide that snakes its way across the terrain of the mind.”
Since retiring his Dirty Beaches moniker in 2016, Zhang has worked across solo piano, improvised music, and sound collage, alongside a parallel career as actor and film scorer that has taken him from David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: The Return to composing the soundtrack for Hlynur Pálmason’s acclaimed Godland.
Pre-Order/Save: https://alexzhanghungtai.bandcamp.com/album/orion-mother