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Divide and Dissolve Premiere “We’re Really Worried About You,” Announce New Album

Experimental Doom Metal Duo announce the signing to Invada Records and the January 2021 full length release of Gas Lit.


October 5, 2020
Written by
She Shreds
Photo by
Billy Eyers

Produced by Ruban Nielson of Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Divide and Dissolve announce the signing to Invada Records and the January 2021 full length release of Gas Lit. Comprised of Takaiya Reed  (saxophone, guitar, live effects/ (Black and Tsalagi [Cherokee]) and Sylvie Nehill (drums, live effects/ (Māori), have long been heralded for their impeccable combination of many worlds, identities, genres, or perhaps more so the destruction of these colonized parameters all together. Whether you find it in the ever expanding depth of a single guitar with tones stacked over the other, or soundscapes intricately tended to keep the listener investigative, the duo crafts their composition with precision, and their latest single “We’re Really Worried About You” is no different. 

“We would like to observe a radical shift in the current paradigm of complacency in regards to oppressive power dynamics, genocide, racism, white supremacy, and colonization,” the band states in their bio. “To give weight and validation to voices that are traditionally misrepresented and criminalized before given a chance to speak.”

Filmed party in Sibley, Port of Oakland, the video shows various creators/artists/collaborators appearing throughout the city and offering movement as a response to the resilience and resistance of Black and Indigenous folks that is also immortalized through the music. When asked how they came up with the concept of the video, directors Sepand Mashiahof and Chi Chi said:

Sepand Mashiahof: “We’re Really Worried About You” is a powerful concept on its own, and Takaiya was able to shade in that title for us in a way that resonated in my own history with abuse, gaslighting, manipulation, etc. We were able to also use the conversation to talk about cultural amnesia (specifically the US or any imperialist/colonialist nation’s denial of its own atrocities) and its reflection on micro-level power dynamics, and how one emaciates into silence when no one is willing to hear their pain, specifically if that pain is a direct threat to white supremacist cis-heterosexist society. The world is structured to mold us down into stunted vessels that have to gaslight ourselves of our own truths/experiences just to survive. This video felt like an expression of that process: the desperation to be heard and the stonewall silence that pushes you into the void of perpetual self-doubt and self-sabotage. 

The concept and the collaboration aspects seemed to also mirror what it takes to move through this grief, that you need friends and community to be able to address these things together and help each other heal through it.

Chi Chi: For me this project could be seen as an expression of collective grief, or maybe the feeling of unexpressed grief … when we start to question ourselves and give power to the belief that whatever happened to us wasn’t real. Of course, we always find a way to survive. We know how to survive! But the process is as draining as it is painful and isolating.

Follow Divide and Dissolve to stay tuned for upcoming releases in anticipation of the January 2021 release of Gas Lit (Invada Records).

Video Credits

Actors: Titania Kumeh (@titaniaartmodel), Adonis Emory (@wearetheoneswevebeenwaitingfor @adon1stheone), Elsa Trash (scissoring.bandcamp.com @scissoring), Fanciulla Gentile (@420facehugger), Semaj Peltier (@horsebreath87)

Production Team: Stone Dove Productions (@stonedoveprod), Sepand Mashiahof (@mothsprotectme), Ricky Martyr (@ricky_martyr), Arianna Cruz-Sellu (@boricua.salone), Michael Beltran (@bel_tron3030), Semaj Peltier (@horsebreath87)

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