Divide and Dissolve recently released new single, “Indignation,” this last Thursday, March 25th. This new single releases alongside an announcement for their newest upcoming album, Systemic, following their 2021 release Gas Lit, slated for a June 30th release. The group also released a music video for “Indignation,” directed by Sepi Mashiahof, which can be viewed below.
“Indignation” is completely wordless, like the majority of Divide and Dissolve’s music. The band’s guitarist and saxophonist Takiaya Reed says that “I believe in the power of non-verbal communication… A huge percent of communication is non-verbal. We learn so much without using words.” Instead, the single uses heavy instrumentals to communicate its message.
The video shows a woman meeting a masked person, who plugs her into a machine which stimulates a dream of a lush forest in her mind. In the dream she starts to scream and cry with anger, and the masked person unplugs her. After leaving, she begins to see the dream version of herself everywhere, and eventually seems to combine with her. The video’s visuals are intense, beautiful, and unsettling, matching the song’s intense instrumentals.
On the song’s message, Reed says that it “is a prayer that land be given back to Indigenous people… A hope that future generations no longer experience the atrocities and fervent violence that colonisation continues to bring forth.”
On the video, she says “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.”
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