The past year belonged to Divide and Dissolve in many ways. The Australian band consisting of Takiaya Reed and Sylvia Nehill first released the fantastic Gas Lit on the Invada label, only to go on to garner acclaim across the alternative music scene. It all culminated in a tour together alongside the incomparable Low. Now Divide and Dissolve will return to Europe and there will be a Czech stop as well.
“Both musicians, one with Maori roots, the other African-American with Cherokee ancestry, are of the opinion that in order to achieve a truly systemic change, we need to come up with a new system,” wrote the fortnightly A2 at the time of Gas Lit’s release. “On Gas Lit, Reed and Nehill build on their organic, mostly instrumental compositions, in which the occasional orchestral introduction draws the listener not into a metallic tirade but an extraordinarily dense torrent that completely embraces the listener – intensely, authoritatively, but never so much that it begins to suffocate.”
Gas Lit is the third album from the incisive duo that has managed to appeal to fans of heavy guitars – but alongside parallels with dense bands like Big Brave and The Body, it’s good to think of other genres too, thanks in part to the producer involvement of New Zealand musician Ruban Nielson (Unknown Mortal Orchestra). Divide and Dissolve play music that is as violent as it is uplifting, and if anyone manages to accompany a thought-provoking agenda with a truly compelling soundtrack, it’s Reed and Nehill.
The Czech premiere of Divide and Dissolve will take place on 29 November at Underdogs’ basement in Smíchov.
