Photo: Yatri Niehaus

Systemic, the new album Divide and Dissolve, is set for release on June 30th through Invada and back in April they shared the beautiful, powerful and gripping lead single ‘Blood Quantum’. As we get closer to release day, Divide and Dissolve are teasing the album again with a poignant and potent new single titled ‘Indignation’. The track is “a prayer that land be given back to Indigenous people,” explained saxophonist and guitarist Takiaya Reed. “A hope that future generations no longer experience the atrocities and fervent violence that colonisation continues to bring forth.” ‘Indignation’ is offered with a video directed by Sepi Mashiahof and Reed had this to say about it:

“In reflecting on the powerful and vital messaging found in Divide and Dissolve’s music: decolonization, the destruction of white supremacy, and liberation from oppressive structures—this video is about the collective grief we experience about the lives we all could have were it not for the cruel and arbitrary systems of power that impede each and every one of our potentials. The potential to truly love ourselves and each other is distorted by the agendas of vicious capitalist vultures who seek to emaciate our joys, bonds, and communities for their own gain. This video depicts an abstracted portrait of what suffering under these accelerating conditions feels like. Technology, dysphoria, dream-form sentience, transaction, and depersonalization constitute the thematic palette, laid upon the hope of shedding our current forms and transcending into boundless, beautiful ether.”

Watch the video below.

Two years on from the release of Gas Lit, Divide and Dissolve are back with a fourth full-length album. Entitled Systemic, the new record retains their commitment to oppose white supremacy and fight for Black and Indigenous liberation. “This music is an acknowledgement of the dispossession that occurs due to colonial violence,” saxophonist and guitarist Takiaya Reed commented, adding that “the goal of the colonial project is to separate Indigenous people from their culture, their life force, their community and their traditions. The album is in direct opposition to this.”. Takiaya has also stated that Systemic “is a prayer to our ancestors”, and “a prayer for land to be given back to Indigenous people, and for future generations to be free from this cycle of violence.”
The album reflects on the systems that sustain colonial violence but it also contemplates better systems for the future, closing with a track that channels hope and positivity. “There’s a world I want to live in, and I’m going to continue to focus on that world,” Takiaya explained. “Indigenous people are here. With our existence it challenges the colonial constructs that call for genocide. We are still alive.”

Systemic arrives on June 30th through Invada and ahead of it, Divide and Dissolve have shared the beautiful, powerful and gripping lead single ‘Blood Quantum’, and an accompanying video. Here it is.

Photo: Billy Eyers

With just over two weeks to go until Divide and Dissolve release their third album, Gas Lit, they have shared a new single from it called ‘Prove It’. The duo of Takiaya Reed and Sylvie Nehill craft music committed “to undermine and destroy the white supremacist colonial framework and to fight for Indigenous Sovereignty, Black and Indigenous Liberation, Water, Earth, and Indigenous land given back”, and as with the album, ‘Prove It’ retains that intention as they explain:

“Prove It – calls into question the need to prove you experienced something. If someone wasn’t there to witness it, it still happened and may have caused harm. Colonial power structures, power dynamics, and societal expectations rely on Black, Indigenous, and people of colour being Gas Lit and denying our experiences, because the predominant white supremacist narrative demands us to. When a tree falls in the forest, it has fallen. Prove It is about the acceptance of experiences of pain without expectation.”

‘Prove It’ brings together beautiful, dark and fierce atmospheres all at once. The track is offered with a video accompaniment, shot and edited by James Robinson. Watch it below.

Gas Lit is out on January 29th through Invada