The new collaboration between Rachika Nayar & Nina Keith
Self-titled debut album out July 18th via Domino’s Smugglers Way
Listen to “It’s Change (ft. Willy Siegel, Katie Dey & Julianna Barwick)” + “Blue Rags, Raging Wind (ft. Amigone)” now
6 april – Den Haag, Rewire
Photo credit: Allegra Messina
Domino’s Smugglers Way imprint is pleased to introduce Disiniblud, the captivating new collaborative project of the composers/producers/multi-instrumentalists Rachika Nayar and Nina Keith. Nina and Rachika were drawn to one another like mirror images or two sisters reuniting after a lifetime of separation. Four years ago, the artists met in Brooklyn’s two-block–by–two-block Maria Hernandez Park after fan-girling each other’s music online. Dishing about messy post-lockdown long-distance lesbianism, heartfelt investments in Buddhist and Hindu philosophies, and a shared high-school love of the Eternal Sunshine OST, the two found their surface similarities gesturing toward a deeper shared existential worldview.
Their kinship—which Rachika describes originating from some “inner-child sisterhood place”—is the heart of their fairytale-like self-titled LP, due out July 18th via Smugglers Way. The two’s self-described “wordless conversation,” the album orbits such themes as mortality, reinvention through destruction, and sublimating fractured histories into music—all resulting in a work that suggests sweeping transformation can come from embracing old wounds with childlike wonder.
Alongside today’s album announcement, the duo shares Disiniblud’s first two singles, “It’s Change (ft. Willy Siegel of Ponytail, Katie Dey & Julianna Barwick)” and “Blue Rags, Raging Wind (ft. Amigone).” Rife with almost merry-go-round samples from three different vocalists, “It’s Change” is a mantra of impermanence, while the neoclassical “Blue Rags, Raging Wind” and its xylophone-esque patters exemplify the album’s core of “inner childlike joy,” says Rachika.
Disiniblud, which features further guest appearances from Cassandra Croft, June McDoom, ASPIDISTRAFLY, and Tujiko Noriko, is available for pre-order on limited edition first pressing on carnelian orange color vinyl, standard CD and cassette with bonus remixes. Pre-order here: Dom Mart | Digital.
Rachika and Nina will play a collaborative set at Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, TN this Friday, March 28. Later this spring they will play Rewire Festival in The Hague, Netherlands together (April 3-6), and Rachika will play a solo set at Donaufestival in Krems, Austria (May 4). Stay tuned for more live dates.
Disiniblud’s album cover was art directed by Rachika and Nina and shot by Allegra Messina. A fluffy dragon head smiles out of the suburban garage of a Los Angeles backhouse, once home to both Rachika and Nina, juxtaposing fantasy against the hyper-mundane and visualizing the playful reverie of the music. The 7-foot puppet head was fabricated by hand in Los Angeles by Miles Robinson at Sara Paquette’s puppet studio. Rachika and Nina’s wings and wearables by tegdirb.
Disiniblud tracklisting:
- Give-upping (ft. Julianna Barwick)
- Blue Rags, Raging Wind (ft. Amigone)
- Serpentine (ft. Cassandra Croft)
- No more to see (ft. June McDoom)
- [it could happen]
- It’s Change (ft. Willy Siegel, Katie Dey & Julianna Barwick)
- Traces in the window (ft. Aspidistrafly)
- whole30 Fight Club
- Disiniblud
- [as is most (bimbo it out)]
- My flickering gift to you (ft. Tujiko Noriko)
Rachika Nayar and Nina Keith meet on complementary but seemingly disparate musical grounds. On her 2022 breakout LP Heaven Come Crashing, Nayar departed from her usual ambient guitar in favor of maximalist synths, sub-bass, and flickers of Amen breaks. Her distinct fusion of post-rock and electronica earned her accolades as Pitchfork’s Best New Music, on several best of the year lists (The New York Times, Stereogum, Fader, GQ, Bandcamp, etc), and as the opening act on tour with M83. Keith, meanwhile, is best known for her self-trained approach to composition, as evident on her 2019 debut MARANASATI 19111 and its delicate medley of cello, piano, clarinet, and flute, used to explore a personal history marked by community tragedy and paranormal incidents. She expands into new territories on her forthcoming releases, like the single “Come Back Different” featuring Julie Byrne, by incorporating modular synths and intricate vocal arrangements with the help of various collaborators. Their combined artistic strengths exalt together on Disiniblud.
“The imagery [of the album] for me is like standing together in the abyss of our memory and reckoning with both the ineffable wonders and atrocities of our life experience,” says Nina, “like we’re holding and protecting each other through that process and finding a way to take both the light and dark.”
“It’s not about healing and moving past the darkness,” clarifies Rachika.
Nina adds, “It’s taking both with you in the satchel and carrying it with you everywhere you go… that’s the only way you can really metabolize it.”
This protection Nina refers to can be as uplifting as encouraging one another to re-enliven a part of their musical repertoire—for Rachika, it might be math-rock guitar abilities at which she shrugs that Nina insists on coaxing out of her; for Nina, it could be her vast hard drive of abandoned modular synth sketches that Rachika inspires her to put to use again. Nina describes this in metaphor like showing off an outfit she used to wear all the time three years ago that now feels outdated, but then “the other one of us sees the jewel there and brings it out.” Sometimes, protecting each other through the process can also be, Rachika explains, “us both arriving at the studio in tears, holding each other for 10 minutes… but instead of picking apart whatever struggles with words, we’ll just start playing—and then a door opens for both of us.”
At other times, the process involves, as the two describe, “cosplaying as each other.” Rachika might try her hand learning the instruments in Nina’s studio (such as piano and clarinet), while Nina will experiment with bass put through Rachika’s guitar pedals and unique methods of audio time-stretching. “We encourage each other to do things outside the ‘identity’ of our solo projects,” Rachika says.
Above all, their practice emphasizes comfort and trust before engaging in childlike play—a state of being that sheds bounded self-consciousness in favor of open imagination. Nina envisions this as she and Rachika’s younger selves packing a satchel, holding hands, and daring one another to run away into a place of “wounds and wonder,” only to discover an unforeseeable magic in an amalgam of post-rock, glitchy indie electronica, ambient, and pop genres in this co-created realm.
Rachika Nayar
rachika.net | Instagram | Bandcamp
Nina Keith
