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Divide And Dissolve’s Takiaya Reed has made the leap to composing symphonies – with some help from the BBC
WORDS: ALEX DELLER
Takiaya Reed is a writing machine!
PRESS/TOSH BASCO
IT’S A TYPICAL winter day in London: cold and grey with the damp doing its best to seep into your bones. Nonetheless, Takiaya Reed is beaming.
As the driving force behind anti-colonial doom/drone behemoth Divide And Dissolve, she’s been delivering chest-crumpling heaviness and flights of unbridled joy for the best part of a decade. Beyond being a formidable riff-wielder, though, she’s also a classically trained saxophonist – one who’s currently putting the finishing touches to her first symphony for the BBC Concert Orchestra. “My entire life I have wanted to write a symphony, and now… I have,” she smiles.