What do you get when you mix classical influences, the sound of crashing doom and the battle against systematic oppression? Divide and Dissolve are born.
The members Takiaya Reed and Sylvie Nehill see it as the primary goal to use their music to challenge white supremacy and fight for black and indigenous liberation. Their sound is heavy – you can feel the rage and the power of their will in it, trying to push against everything that is wrong in the world.
NME writes that ‘Gas Lit’, their most recent album released in 2021, ‘is a marked evolution of their absorbing sound, which spans doom, drone, and classical across a nuanced spectrum’, and calls Nehill and Reed ‘purveyors of sonic extremity’. Divide & Dissolve’s music is largely instrumental, but it does not feel like the vocals are missing at all. They have the ability to say what they want to say using the instruments alone, with extra meaning added through not-so-subtly political song titles, such as ‘Black Resistance’ and ‘Cultural Extermination’. They are not afraid to cause controversy – there is no battle without havoc.
Divide and Dissolve perform on the Sunday of Supersonic 2022 – get your tickets here.
