Candi Carpenter has entered a new chapter with the release of the new EP, Reincarnation, a six-track project that turns questions of identity, sexuality, faith, mortality and healing into a genre-bending musical and visual experience.

The queer, autistic singer-songwriter, producer and multidisciplinary artist has already lived several distinct musical lives. Raised in a Christian Missionary Alliance pastor’s family, Carpenter grew up performing in churches across the Midwest with their family gospel band, The Carpenter’s, before dropping out of high school and moving to Nashville. There, they toured with Grand Ole Opry legends, scored a Billboard country single and eventually made their own Grand Ole Opry debut.

With Reincarnation, Carpenter takes that history somewhere considerably less familiar.

The EP follows their 2024 alt-pop debut, Demonology, which developed a devoted indie following, and finds Carpenter pushing further into alt-rock, theatricality and visual storytelling. Across six tracks, they explore what it means to dismantle inherited beliefs and construct a new identity from what remains.

“Every day, about one percent of your body dies,” Carpenter explains. “Most of what dies regenerates. In one lifetime, we are many different people: different timelines, different outcomes, alternate realities. I believe in reincarnation because I’m a different person every single day.”

That idea of constant transformation runs through the entire project. For Carpenter, reincarnation is less about a literal return to another life and more about recognising the succession of selves that can exist within one lifetime. The EP consequently becomes a record of personal reinvention, informed by Carpenter’s experience of growing up evangelical and later rebuilding their sense of self outside that environment.

“I make art to peel myself back, like the bananas and apples rotting on my kitchen counter,” Carpenter says. “This EP was my chance to try on the genres I wasn’t allowed to explore growing up in the church.”

That freedom is reflected in the EP’s musical range. Each song inhabits its own genre reality while contributing to a larger narrative concerning mortality, capitalism, fear, simulation, sexuality, religion and rebellion. Rather than settling into a single sound, Reincarnation uses its shifting musical identities as part of the storytelling.

The project also extends far beyond the recordings themselves. Carpenter has created an accompanying visual short film in which each of the six songs receives its own music video, with the individual chapters connecting to form a single narrative. Made on an indie budget, the production saw Carpenter and friends construct a trash dump inside a warehouse before filming the project over the course of a week.

The resulting world is populated by zombies and deliberately blunt symbolism, with the film moving through a deliberately chaotic visual palette that Carpenter describes as a “filthy rainbow”. The approach reinforces the EP’s central themes of destruction, rebirth and the question of what can be salvaged from the remains of an old life.

Rock icon Jane Wiedlin of The Go-Go’s also appears in the short film, bringing another distinctive presence to Carpenter’s increasingly ambitious creative universe.

“Their new short film, REINCARNATION, is relentlessly original and thought-provoking,” Wiedlin adds. “Candi is the real deal. The brightest dark star I’ve ever met.”

The EP opens with ‘Reincarnation’, an existential reflection on the fluidity of identity, before moving through a series of increasingly provocative subjects. ‘Little Freak’ examines capitalism and disposability through the language of consumption and love, while ‘The Fear of Being Human Remains’ turns inward, confronting the unease of consciousness and the experience of being trapped within a human body.

‘Inside the Simulation’ questions the nature of reality through the prism of Carpenter’s evangelical upbringing, drawing on the fear of eternal punishment that shaped their early understanding of death. ‘Biblically Accurate Angel’ addresses sexuality and religious shame, transforming the image of the angel into a symbol of beauty and desire that Carpenter was once taught to distrust.

The EP closes with ‘American God’, a rejection of systems that demand obedience and prescribe identities from the outside. Its final declaration, “I am my own church,” provides a fitting endpoint for a project centred on dismantling inherited beliefs and deciding what should replace them.

For Carpenter, however, the making of Reincarnation was not simply an exercise in experimentation. It became part of a much more personal process.

“This project gave me the chance not only to challenge myself musically but also to grow as a director, actor, and world-builder,” they say. “I wanted this EP to help me heal the parts of myself that were still secretly bruised. Reincarnation was a massive undertaking, but the concept actually worked. I’m releasing this project as a completely different person than whoever I was when I started it.”

That sense of transformation also connects Reincarnation to the wider arc of Carpenter’s career. Dolly Parton has previously described them as “one of the greatest singer-songwriters I’ve ever heard, bar none,” while Brandi Carlile, who previously produced and collaborated with Carpenter, has praised their voice and storytelling. Rolling Stone has described Carpenter as “a devastatingly direct singer with… an axe to grind”, while To The Point Music has called them “one of those once-in-a-lifetime talents”.

Carpenter has performed across major television networks and platforms including BBC 2, Good Morning Britain, TLC and NBC, while their work has generated hundreds of millions of views across social media. Yet Reincarnation represents a particularly expansive expression of their artistic identity, bringing music, filmmaking, acting and world-building together into one project.

The release will also be followed by a co-headlining cross-country tour with fellow indie artist Moselle, beginning with an all-star EP release show in Nashville on September 12. The live performances are set to extend the world of Reincarnation into a theatrical concert experience featuring deconstructed church imagery and a cinematic presentation.

“I want my shows to be a safe space for people who are looking for the community we lost when we found ourselves,” Carpenter says. “My hope is that everyone goes home feeling less alone.”

From gospel prodigy to Grand Ole Opry performer, Billboard country artist and now alt-rock shapeshifter, Carpenter’s career has continually resisted staying in one place. Reincarnation embraces that restlessness rather than attempting to resolve it.

Listen below:

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