Dirty Beaches is best known for making ossified rockabilly, but his first transmission of the new year is a very different beast.

Alex Zhang Hungtai will issue two LPs in one under the Dirty Beaches alias in 2013: a new album titled Drifters, and a largely instrumental sister set called Love Is The Devil. New track ‘Love Is The Devil’ is presumably taken from the second of those discs, and it shows Hungtai on particularly devastated/devastating form.

As per last year’s ‘Elizabeth’s Theme’ 7″ for Kingfisher Bluez, the track is a drumless instrumental piece crafted from Angelo Badalamenti-style instrumentation and curdled synth pads. It’s gentle, but there’s a simmering intensity at work; as Hungtai says in response to a snitty YouTube comment below the video, “I was crying my fucking eyes out when i wrote this and punching myself in the face.”

Drifters/Love Is The Devil will feature 16 new tracks running to 75 minutes. The album(s) drop(s) on May 21 through Zoo Music. [via Stereogum]