Earlier this year the exciting experimental pop duo Black Dresses announced their breakup, citing unwanted TikTok popularity and harassment against band member Devi McCallion. Since the breakup, both members of Black Dresses have released music separately. Rook dropped the solo album 2,020 Knives, while McCallion teamed up with Katie Dey on the collaborative LP Magic Fire Brain. So it’s a very cool surprise to see a new Black Dresses song out in the world today.

Last year, Rook and collaborator Riley Rossi, who also records as ESPer99, released me&you, a dreamy DIY pop album, under the name rook&nomi. This morning, Black Dresses released “WORLD PEACE,” a track that they recorded around that time with ESPer99. It’s a brittle, seething industrial pop jam about being done with all this shit: “This regimen/ We’re taking in/ Of vapor trails/ And TV meals/ It’s all the same/ We’re not to blame/ I want peace, world peace, motherfucker.”

Below, watch Black Dresses’ intense “WORLD PEACE” video and their statement about the new track:

On their Bandcamp page, Black Dresses write:

It seems impossible to have peace between eachother in our small divided communities. It even seems impossible to find peace within ourselves. It’s hard to feel at peace with the band “Black Dresses”, something that was very loved and which was our life’s work every day until it no longer could be. We believe that one human cannot survive alone, and we like the sound of the word “peace”, but should we really look to find “peace”?

This song was composed and recorded in November 2019, a time of great turmoil for everyone involved. ESPer99, having been coerced out of their LA sublet by repeat SWATings, joined us for a month in our new Hamilton apartment. While ESPer99 & Rook finished the album rook&nomie – me&you, this triune collaboration took shape as well.

Black Dresses “WASTEISOLATION” came into the world on Easter weekend 2018, which is when Christ was Crucified and burned in Hell for three days. Black Dresses was Born Into “Death”.

Now under The Great Conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter on the Winter Solstice of 2020, where the two planets allign in our view and appear as one, creating a rare event called “The Christmas Star” or “The Star of Bethlhem” in reference to the astrological event that guided wise men to the newborn Son Of G*d.

Black Dresses has completed the cycle and travelled from “Death” and into “Birth”.

Thank you for joining us. Forgive us for our transgressions in this extremely turbulent time. Please at least find forgiveness for yourselves. Please enjoy this singing dancing colorful light and darkness.

Sincerely,
Black Dresses

“WORLD PEACE” is out now as a name-your-price download at Bandcamp. rook&nomi’s me&you is also out now and available here.