IS NEXT LIFE DELIVERY A CULT?
photo by Diane Lac
Creating through eight pillars of ideals and tin foil hats probably aren’t what you’d expect from a new wave indie pop dance punk project, but Next Life Delivery exists to defy your expectations — especially in new EP Programme Obsolete.
Next Life Delivery (NLD) is trading a world of perfected visuals, fine-tuned everything, and overly-polished online presences for a raw, punk-informed DIY world built from self-made art, cultish undertones and critiquing convenience culture. Jackson Craig, the mind behind NLD, began his musical journey as a folk artist making music under his government name. Craig has lived in Philadelphia, New York, Berlin, and Los Angeles, which all come together in the sonic soup of his music.
photo by Diane Lac
Contrast from Craig’s folk-background, NLD delivers (pun intended) experimental electronic and synth-foward music with gritter, more tongue-in-cheek lyrics that confront the underpinnings of modern society.
“It's mainly about this idea of, you know, are you willing to wait and not have anything convenient in order to achieve the things that you really want?” questioned Craig in an interview with Disaster.
Programme Obsolete is composed of seven tracks to introduce NLD to the world. Dance-punk, LCD Soundsystem-esque anthems flow into tech-house rhythmic tracks, creating a disco-washed, genre-bending sonic experience that’s singular and hard to define. The EP is a testament to Craig’s ability to pull from different environments and turn topics of criticism into something you can’t help but to dance to.
“Coming back from [Berlin] was sort of a weird experience of living abroad and then coming back to the US, where it just seemed like more than ever, things were crumbling in this way that was really scary, culturally. And politically, I think all of those things came together for me as an opportunity to try something wildly different and speak to issues that I felt like were more interesting to me.”
photo by Diane Lac
Programme Obsolete establishes Next Life Delivery as the project to keep an eye on. The EP’s versatility displays Craig’s ingenuity as an artist and promises a future where experimentation and social commentary meet on the dancefloor.
