DUNUMS Premiere Their New Single “honeycomb art on a billion twins”

While some bands form for no reason except to just play rock n’ roll, some, like DUNUMS, form out of unusual and exceptional circumstances. The band premieres their new single, “honeycomb art on a billion twins,” today. It comes from their upcoming new album I wasn’t that thought, set for release on October 4th.

Led by Sijal Nasralla, DUNUMS is more than just a conventional band. Nasralla has taken a more expansive approach to the group, fashioning it to be a multimedia, collaborative project that pushes the musical envelope. Drawing on the traits of noisy post-rock, progressive rock, and bedroom fake jazz, the songs are broad and extensive.

Discussing “honeycomb art on a billion twins,” Nasralla states:

“This song is an impressionistic poem I wrote for two kids, loved from two families, born from two portals, in the year of two 20s. A commemoration of the mundane miracle that my child was born at the same time as her dear friend, from the labour of our dear friends, in the time of lockdown, side-by-side.

“I wanted to write a song that felt kaleidoscopically fixated about the number 2. What repeats happens twice, it all may seem odd, but it’s still even. Things that sound similar, when they happen again, are a little different. Listen closer, it all kind of jumbled up. What when zoomed in on looked like just two, is now the innermost branch of adjoining cells in a brooding candy hive that spans infinities. One small phenomenon, side-by-side, becomes big billions – and so on.

“This song has special guests. One of my oldest friends Casey Malone (Zodiac Lovers) plays toddling synth melodies while the parents of the two kids harmonize their exasperations across this vague anthem. In my mind, we all pledge allegiance to the mystery we can’t count.”

With their Palestinian heritage, DUNUMS approaches songwriting with a higher purpose. Their songs blend together memories and reflections on their homeland and translate them into sound. These songs reflect on family, love, rage, and how God is always greater. The band writes music in direct response to social and political events in their homeland. They view their work as decisively connected to their rooted histories in Palestine and how they have managed to assimilate into the culture of the American South in their home state of North Carolina.

I wasn’t that thought was written primarily from the perspective of Nasralla’s daughter Tasneem. Nasralla tried to interpret and convey her youthful perspective in the songwriting, highlighting particular significant moments. He considers Tasneem’s earliest impressions of the world, her first pains, her first traumas, her wonder, and more. It’s ultimately an album about love and the power inherent in it. He views love as the truest tool for displacing oppression, and he connects that concept to his experience as a Palestinian in the United States. I wasn’t that thought was a very well-conceived album, both definitive and highly original in sound and subject matter.

DUNUMS ‘I wasn’t that thought’ album artwork