The seed to what would become Next Life was planted when songwriter Hai Nguyen Dinh as a six-year old played “Exploding Fist”on his Commondore64 and blew the speakers of the family TV. Years later Hai met future Next Life partner Tormod Christensen on a pre-internet copy-party, where young people challenged the force of primitive processors in the same way previous generations went kiting or cliff-diving. This love for transistor culture and digital storytelling is still very present in Next Life’s sound.
At the time Next Life did their first show in 1999, everyone present knew that it was a band destined for cult worship. An unidentified mixture of chip-sounds and extremely violent music, presented by fast-moving, almost cartoon-like characters, made the Next Life shows become an instant classic. It was quite describing that Next Life’s debut album from 2006 was named Electic Violence.
Since then, Next Life has been a band of ultra-slow evolution. From the more electronic output of their Red End 7″ (2000) and their debut, to the synth/guitar hybrid of The Lost Age (2009), to The Resurrection EP (2010) which marked the 10th anniversary of the band by adding a drummer to the line-up.
Next Life’s distinct sound and self-imposed limitations has created expectiations that Next Life has a grand plan – a goal to their evolution that lies far beyond the present state of music. And while other bands change their styles and sound dated after a couple of years, Next Life’s output keep sounding more futuristic for each year that passes.
For more information:
http://www.electricdungeon.org