‘Not many people in metal look like me’: Divide and Dissolve, the doom band celebrating Indigenous sovereignty
Ask Takiaya Reed of the Melbournebased doom band Divide and Dissolve how she created their megalithic sound and she’ll tell you a story that aligns with her nature as a staunch believer in own her artistic path: it came to her in a dream. “It sticks with me, this sound,” says Reed. “I’m always chasing after it.”
In 2017, drummer Sylvie Nehill helped Reed translate that sound into Divide and Dissolve: her primal, crashing drums meshed with Reed’s experimental, sludge-influenced guitar and soprano saxophone, a combination that Reed says exists “in the realm of beauty”. (As of last year, Nehill has left the group.) Every night, Reed ensures their sound shakes the ceiling by playing through two giant guitar stacks and two bass stacks. “If I could play through more,” she admits, “I promise I would.”
Divide and Dissolve is a mostly instrumental project; the heavy sound, says Reed, bears their message, which advocates for Indigenous sovereignty and against the atrocities of colonialism. Reed, a Texas native, is African American and Cherokee; Nehill is white Australian and Māori: the pair met in Australia and had an “instant connection”, bonding over their Indigenous heritages. “In making heavy music I feel like these concepts are very connected,” says Reed. “It’s so many things. It’s super dynamic, heaviness, beauty, pain. It’s complex.”
The band have embarked on a journey unlike few other doom acts, from the underground to widespread critical acclaim: Portishead’s Geoff Barrow signed them to his label Invada for the release of their third album, 2021’s Gas Lit, which was produced by Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s Ruban Nielson.
BBC Radio 6 Music’s Mary Anne Hobbs named it her record of the year; Low invited them to support a highprofile tour.
Reed is feeling the impact of the new demands. We meet in June, the day after her grandfather’s funeral in the US, as she lands in the UK for press engagements. She’s staying at a friend’s house, groggy from jet lag but cheerful as she conducts the interview from bed. Over the course of an hour, she slowly reclines further down her pillow, warning me: “Sorry, I have to lay down more.”
Nielson also produced Divide and Dissolve’s new record, Systemic, which pairs dissonant soundscapes with celestial synths and reedy saxophone flourishes. They too bonded over their shared Indigenous identity: Nielson is of Hawaiian and Māori descent. “There’s something so special about being able to work with other Indigenous people because we share a connection and there’s a lot of care and intention there,” says Reed.
After releasing Gas Lit, Reed and Nehill moved to New Orleans and they started work on Systemic in early 2022.
It was a free-living time: Reed was going through a fun-loving partying phase, often staying out all night until band practice with Nehill at 7am the next morning, and the writing process involved lots of “sitting down” and “relaxation”. It’s ironic that calm was a priority to write a record that is anything but. On Simulacra, the band ramp up to their fastest BPM yet, uprooting their doom foundations into the world of speed metal and thrash, while lead single Blood Quantum batters the listener with a chugging wall of distortion.
The latter questions how our identities are verified, looking at concepts such as the “one drop” rule that determined that anyone with even one Black ancestor was Black and open to discrimination. “It’s wild how violent these systems are and how they continue to perpetuate poverty, suffering, and trauma,” says Reed. Her aversion to lyrics – bar an ongoing collaboration with Venezuelan poet Minori Sanchiz-Fung, who features on the spoken word track Kingdom of Fear – is intentional. “My experience with communication is you mostly don’t need words,” Reed says, explaining that many listeners often correctly guess the meaning behind their instrumental songs without her help.
It’s easy to see how a band that centres their message around topics of race, identity, and colonialism could face backlash, especially playing in doom and metal circles that aren’t known for confronting such issues. On stage, where Reed often introduces the themes of songs and acknowledges the rightful owners of the land and her ancestors, the band have been on the receiving end of hate. She brushes it off. “There have been people who have heckled me,” she says. “I have stories, but doesn’t really happen so much any more.”
While audiences have warmed to the band’s message more over the years, Reed says she continues to talk about her themes on stage as she’s aware “there’s not many people who look like me doing this type of music”. She still sometimes encounters audience members who are confused about why a woman of colour is playing in a heavy band. “If you’re in shock about the type of music that’s being played, then let me just be really clear what this music is about.”
Nehill stepped down from touring duties for personal reasons. Reed praises the former drummer: “I’m so grateful for all the music that we have made together because we have a very unique and rare connection.” Rather than find a permanent new bandmate, says Reed, she may work with a rotating cast of drummers. “It’s more like it’s a continual conversation. I feel excited for the future and excited to play music with other people as well.”
The song Desire, a multi-layered, soaring saxophone arrangement, ends the album on a hopeful note, like waking up from a vivid dream. Since the record addresses injustice, does Reed have hope that these systems will eventually fail? “Yes,” she states emphatically, “and something new will be created.” What exactly that will be she is unsure of, but she knows it’s vital. “For me, it’s my choice to remain optimistic,” she says, “I need to do this for my own survival. I need to put a smile on my own face.”
• Systemic is out now on Invada Records. Divide and Dissolve tour the UK from 31 August.
• This article was amended on 3 July 2023 to clarify that Divide and Dissolve are now Melbourne-based, and formed in 2017, not 2015.
If you’re in shock about the type of music that’s being played, then let me just be really clear what it’s about
Takiaya Reed