Ask Takiaya Reed of the Melbourne-based 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.”
