#systemic

[dustedmagazine]

Divide and Dissolve — Systemic (Invada)

Photo by Su Cassiano

Divide and Dissolve continues to provoke, even if some of the questions are becoming a bit familiar: Can instrumental music express a politics? Is there anything intrinsically subversive in the fact of women of color making heavy music? Is doom metal the right (sub)cultural space for indigenous-identified women wishing to promulgate a socially conscious, anti-colonial agenda? Systemic doesn’t provide any evidence or assertions that will settle those issues, even as the band’s public-facing discourse and promotional chatter strike ever more righteous rhetorical stances. This reviewer is down for the politics. The music is a more complicated proposition.

Doom metal is conventionally possessed of feeling tones that seem suited to Divide and Dissolve’s project: misery on tectonic scales, anger that smolders and simmers and then erupts into sudden conflagration. Other bands have coupled that tonal range with left-leaning socio-political messaging; for recent examples, see Forlesen’s ecologically minded folky doom, or Mordom’s application of glacially paced bum-out music to the problematics of dope addiction. Even more relevant are many of the records released by the Body over the last fifteen years — see especially No One Deserves Happiness (2016) or many of the cover songs compiled on Anthology (2011). Somehow the political content of the Body’s music is both more and less didactic than what Divide and Dissolve has succeeded in articulating, and certainly it’s a lot more compelling, aesthetically and ideologically. 

That’s not so damning a criticism, given the Body’s excellence, which is tough for any band to compete with. But it’s worth noting. Divide and Dissolve gets most didactic on Systemic with “Kingdom of Fear,” which includes a spoken word performance from poet Minori Sanchez-Fung. Over the band’s cool drone and occasional stirs of noise that evoke Earth’s more recent work, Sanchez-Fung intones, “In the kingdom of fear, a shadow hovers over my cover of leaves and violets,” and later, “I have pleaded to consult the chorus of night, to hold the strands of moon that tether me to beauty and let me rest.” The language isn’t straightforward enough to stir politicized passions, and while the images sustain a reading that underscores women’s productive powers, they collapse into an earth-mother symbolics that feels dated and a little soft, when a more militant response seems necessary to confront the injustices attending our current conjuncture. 

The record is better when the music does the talking, as it usually does for Divide and Dissolve. “Indignation” commences with a couple minutes of woodwinds, interlaced and gesturing toward symphonic textures, performed by Takiaya Reed. The inevitable, deafening entrance of Reed’s guitar sounds simultaneously like explosion and collapse, which is not easily done, and which is a fitting sonic complement to indignation: the emotion moves toward the world with aggressive rage, and also back into the person feeling indignant, who insists on the overriding validity of her feeling, her ideas, her sense of fairness. That’s the sort of interest that Divide and Dissolve is capable of generating. 

Of course, none of that relative complexity controls what a listener might tend to feel indignant about. Tune into the various permanently outraged talking heads on The Daily Wire, for instance, and you’ll hear a whole lot of indignation: Matt Walsh’s moronic (and always creepy) reactionary chatter about the status of the noun “woman,” or Candace Owens’ latest bit of semi-coherent clickbait (this reviewer was particularly grossed out by her defense of the cause of the American Confederacy on putative social class terms). Perhaps doom metal would not be the first choice to soundtrack those bits of rightwing bilge — but I can hear Moonsorrow’s insipid, Viking-obsessed, musical muscle-flexing whenever Walsh or Josh Hawley start yip-yapping about masculinity. 

But that’s me. Music’s nonrepresentational access to feeling may be its most distinct and its most powerful aesthetic property. In that aforementioned promotional chatter, much is made of Divide and Dissolve’s investment in the unifying power of non-verbal communication, and the undervalued extent of that non-verbal communication’s presence in our lives and experiences. But the non-verbal is still socially constructed and patently representational. See the recent transformation of the thumb-to-forefinger “OK” sign into an emblem for white power, which occurred through the functionality of social media-driven symbolics. Divide and Dissolve make heavy music, and these are indeed heavy times. To intervene effectively, the heaviness may need the iterative and representational power of the verbal. And when it’s invoked, that language may need to be political, focused and forceful. 

Jonathan Shaw

#divide and dissolve #systemic #invada #jonathan shaw #albumreview #dusted magazine #doom metal

[11oh1]

*systemic

#postsss #*systemic #systemic #fashion #flare jeans #football jersey #graphic jersey #streetwear #street fashion #street style #street art #photography #studio #model #short hair #orange heels #celine #eytys #commes des garcons #777

[notbeingnoticed]

Harvard Admission rates based on race:

Asians: 12.7%

Whites: 15.3%

Hispanics: 31.3%

Blacks: 56.1%

Actual systemic racism.

#racism #systemic #systemic racism #harvard

[grouchydairy]

I am cautious about how it is presented as a cure-all for systemic issues, telling students unfunded for an extra year to catch up after the pandemic that the way to cure their worries is not to provide concrete financial support but to be grateful for being a part of the program at all.

#MentalHealth

#mental health #systemic #poetry #pandemic #systemic issues

[inthefallofasparrow]

The Alt-Right Playbook: The Cost of Doing Business | Innuendo Studios

#innuendo studios #systemic #racism #alt right #Youtube

[recetasaludables]

#lupus #lupuserythematosus #systemiclupus #erythematosus #systemic #healthyrecipes #recetasaludables

[truths89]

There is a library of essence residing within my soul. I am living scripture whose verses are whole.

Zisa Aziza

#truths89 #poetry #negressofsaturn #zisa aziza #identity #politics #woke #labels #ism #movements #splintering #in-fighting #hegemony #systemic #imperialism #ecocide #complicity #humanity #air #water #electricity #necessity #revolution #healing #global reformation #anticapitalism #habitable earth

[eggwhiteswithspinach]

I am cautious about how it is presented as a cure-all for systemic issues, telling students unfunded for an extra year to catch up after the pandemic that the way to cure their worries is not to provide concrete financial support but to be grateful for being a part of the program at all.

#MentalHealth

#mental health #systemic #poetry #pandemic #systemic issues

[b0bthebuilder35]

I will not now or ever, on any platform, “tread lightly.”

When something major (and horrific) happens in this country, so many times we hear and see, “THIS ISN’T OUR AMERICA.”

But it is.

You see, these are the type of people we have making laws in our country. These people did not get into the positions on their own - they have a voter base that put them in office. That voter base is made up of doctors, nurses, lawyers, educators, police officers, military, a variety of public service workers, and so on. The very people who have “control” in so many situations, walk around in their every day life with beliefs just like Senator Cornyn.

White supremacy is woven into every thread of this America - historically and presently. The proof is in the disproportionate number of Black women who die during childbirth. It’s in the disproportionate number of Black and Brown people who are currently behind prison walls for non-violent offenses. It’s in the glaring difference between quality of education in predominantly white schools versus schools that are predominantly POC. It’s on display when a white mass shooter is apprehended, very much alive, but a traffic stop of an unarmed Black man ends in unnecessary tragedy. I could go on but you get the point.

You can continue to believe that “this isn’t your America” all you want to but it is. It always has been. Pretending that you don’t see it only perpetuates the problem and you can’t solve a problem that you pretend doesn’t exist. Acknowledgment is the first step of problem solving, and for some, that is the hardest part.

The reality - This isn’t the America that you’ve glorified in your mind. The question is, are you ready and willing to do the work required to make it the America that you want it to be?

#United States of America #United States #USA #America #Politics #politicians #racism #institutional racism #white supermacists #white supremacy #systemic racism #systemic #brown v board of education #plessy v Ferguson #american government #federal government #government #do work #stand up to racism #fight back #senate #house of representatives #congress #representatives #senator from texas #kkk #reality is #laws #this is amerikkka #this is america

[heavensky79]

🦊 Where there is a lot of light there is also a lot of shadow 🦊 ☺️ Wo viel Licht, da viel Schatten 🌞 HeavenSky aka Nicolas Sebastian 12/2022 😊 The more light, power, ressources, creativity a person has, the more shadows are in his/her personality. This is a fact. If you look at outstanding personalities like Frida Kahlo, Janis Joplin, Nikola Tesla, Mozart, Steve Jobs, Jimi Hendrix, etc. etc. you will find personalities with lots of light... And shadows. This represents also the systemic (psychology) principle of balance. 🤓 #valuecoaching @valuecoaching #light #shadows #emotions #sunlight #clouds #trees #treephotography #coaching #psychology #sun #shadows #emotions #heavensky #systemisch #wertecoaching #values #valuecoach #valuecoaching #systemic #balance #heavenskypopartica #nature #power #nature #naturelovers #systemischescoaching #stgallercoachingmodell #nicolassebastianfitz (hier: Kummenberg) https://www.instagram.com/p/CnAIM_iKk-1/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#valuecoaching #light #shadows #emotions #sunlight #clouds #trees #treephotography #coaching #psychology #sun #heavensky #systemisch #wertecoaching #values #valuecoach #systemic #balance #heavenskypopartica #nature #power #naturelovers #systemischescoaching #stgallercoachingmodell #nicolassebastianfitz

[ramyeongif]

Writing prompt: How are you balancing between personal responsibility and advocating for systemic change to tackle what most needs attention in your life right now?

#writingprompt

#writing #writing prompt #personal #advocacy #systemic

[malikismindful]

Peace and Love, Black Family! THE 🇺🇸 of AmeriKKKa is 100% PURE EVIL! There is nothing in this world that can or would make me change my mind about it! By default we (Black folks) are complicit in our own ONGOING role here. Wherever you may live in a the 🇺🇸, Black folks are concentrated on all things “silly”, “foolish”, and “unproductive”. Rarely do we as a whole enjoin ourselves to serious matters, unless we protest a shooting here or there, and even that is short lived! Black family, we live very warm under the arm of a dragon…The megabeast of Nations! Sad to say, many of us have allowed ourselves to become “Devils” as a result. If this is truly Revelations then when will the Black man and Black woman of consciousness REVEL? It’d be nice to say that this could happen without Revolution! But it’s impossible. GET ON CODE. STAY ON CODE.🩸💣🔫✊🏾 BLACK POWER! #blackpower #blacklove #blackman #blackwoman #blackempowerment #black #revolution #revolutionary #evil #100 #no #good #systemic #racism #goddamn #america #dont #bless #the #usa #malikismindful https://www.instagram.com/p/CjNTvjtOaydz6MLdU6F7ZnxAorpVPTViOZWjXE0/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#blackpower #blacklove #blackman #blackwoman #blackempowerment #black #revolution #revolutionary #evil #100 #no #good #systemic #racism #goddamn #america #dont #bless #the #usa #malikismindful

[realhankmccoy]

It bears repeating that a sadder consequence is that those who are the system have no clue that they are the system and throw their whole lives away being the system while internally and externally thinking they're fighting the system.

Take any Millenbot or Trump Jr. for example. Trump Jr. proudly thumps his chest against the evils of the system -- the Republican system, the liberal system, all of it, like he thinks he's the caped crusader or Batman. Trump Jr., however, is the system. Every quality that makes America America -- wow, he sure seems to demonstrate it.

This is just as true on the left. This is why you cannot just go to any zone that votes blue and suddenly find yourself in paradise, no matter how much money that county, state or city might have.

Americans find themselves to be rebels. So did John Wayne. So did George Washington. The American system is themselves; rebellious, freedom fighting, segregationist, rough and ready, quick on the draw, locked and loaded, money and power said to be more serious than everything you do, moneypower uber alles

#usa #america #the system #systemic

[daylighteclipsed]

ENTRY LEVEL MEANS NO EXPERIENCE. IT MEANS NO PORTFOLIO OF RELEVANT SAMPLES. ENTRY LEVEL IS ENTRY LEVEL

#HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO GAIN EXPERIENCE YOU STUPID FUCKS #I HATE THIS I HATE JOB HUNTING THIS SYSTEM IS ABSOLUTE DOG SHIT

[mostly-funnytwittertweets]

#space #solar eclipse #solar system #eclipse #mars #earth #twitter #meme #memes #tweets #tweet #funny #lol #humor

[53v3nfrn5]

Solar Eclipse Shadows

These solar eclipse shadows form due to the distance between the sun and the leaves on the trees. The distance and the proximity of the leaves to one another cause for a "lensing" type effect, making the eclipse shadow clearer to the human eye.

#solar eclipse #nature #light #sciencecore #science #sun #shadows #aesthetic #photography #cat #catcore #cottagecore #naturecore #earthcore #earth #solar system #sunlight #interesting #dreamcore #dreamy