Divide and Dissolve – TFW (Saddle Creek)

Divide and Dissolve – TFW (Saddle Creek)

TFW, the two track release from duo Divide and Dissolve is a driving statement against white supremacy and colonisation, wrapped in a masterclass of deep drone – out now on Saddle Creek. 

Divide and Dissolve

Artist: Divide and Dissolve
Release: TFW
Label: Saddle Creek
Released: 7 August 2020
Find it: Bandcamp | Spotify

Even when there are no words, some music delivers so vitally, so clearly, and so powerfully there can be no doubt what the message behind it is. Here, then, is the first new music from Divide and Dissolve in 2020 with two-track release TVR: an elemental anti-colonial drone behemoth. And like that biblical beast without words the tracks evoke and bring together dignity, integrity, and loyalty as an all powerful statement on where the band has come from and where they want to come too.

Writing about the release on Bandcamp the band said, “TFW is a beginning. A pathway for Divide and Dissolve. When we first met one of the first pieces of information we chose to share with each other is that we are Indigenous. TFW is a map we created to fight the dispossession that we both experience and strive to negate. It is a humble and demanding petition for Indigenous Sovereignty, decolonization in all its formations, our connection with the Earth, Water, Life, people and our responsibilities. TFW is a manifestation of our resistance to colonization, slavery, racism, the carceral state, imperialism, and oppressive power structures and ideologies.”

The two tracks – RVR and 8VA – are bone-crushing twins. RVR drags itself along in huge, heavy, menacing, drum-pounding steps. A woozy guitar line see-saws back and forth across percussion crashes and while it feels as if at any moment it could just slow…to…nothing…it carries on fading out but never distinctly ending. As blunt as RVR is, 8VA is complex. A slower, quieter burn with jazz structures melded to experimental melody, with flurries of bright saxophone over sudden percussion and evolving mesmeric rhythms.

Label Saddle Creek sum this release – and the mission of the band – succinctly and with huge power. They said, “Mirroring the brash, bone-crushing potency of their dynamic Drone music, the formidable Takiaya Reed (saxophone, guitar, live effects) and Sylvie Nehill (drums, live effects) carry their fight and ancestors fight forward each and every day, using the power of their performances to draw attention to the ongoing battle against systemic oppression.”

The two tracks come ahead of an album – the band’s second long player – which is due in 2020.

Find Divide and Dissolve: Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Bandcamp | Spotify

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Sarah Lay

Sarah Lay is editor of Popoptica.
A long-standing music journalist she's also co-founder of independent record label Reckless Yes, an author of novels, and when not messing around with words and music, a digital strategist.
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