Though the artists Rachika Nayar and Nina Keith have known each other for less than five years, their debut collaboration under the Disiniblud moniker displays a maturity that seems to extend beyond the temporal span of their creative relationship. Both bring their own sonic language to the table here—Nayar is perhaps best known for music grounded in the guitar; Keith’s previous work fits, in its own idiosyncratic way, within the contemporary classical idiom—but the record is, no doubt, a unique manifestation of their relationship. We wanted to learn more, so we sent a few questions over, and the two hit us back with an insightful look into the nature of their dynamics as a duo, both as musicians and friends. Read the piece below and listen to the album on Nina. 

How did you two meet up in the first place? At what point did it become apparent that a collaboration would be a good idea?

Rachika: I had been listening to Nina’s album over and over in 2021. It was one of the things reminding me what’s beautiful about being human and live-laugh-loving. Nina was living in Philly at the time, I was in NYC. We DM’d online about how we love each other’s music, then met up in Bushwick one day when she was visiting her long-distance girlfriend. We had a lot of talks about metaphysical TikToks, long-distance lesbianism, Ram Dass, the Eternal Sunshine OST … We became close friends pretty quick.

Nina: Yeah, we were pretty immediately obsessed with each other's minds. I feel like we kinda just picked up instruments in Rachika's apartment one of the first times I came over and it felt like we uncovered this new conduit to communicate with each other. Sometimes you meet someone and it feels as if there are years of time you spent together, except it’s in the future instead of the past? And all your conversations feel like they are less to do with the specifics of what you’re saying and more like this sort of dance that you're doing in celebration of uncovering that mystery of what's about to happen? Anyway, making music with Rachika has always felt like we're just speaking to each other from that mystery place and expressing all the ineffable stuff that can’t be put into words. It’s the most precious thing to me.

The tracks on this album are so layered. Where did these songs start? Were there any sort of songwriting or production methods that you replicated across the record?

Rachika: They started in a lot of places—like, geographically. My apartment in NYC, Nina’s in Philly, the backhouse in LA that was Nina’s before it became mine. Sometimes we’d be visiting each other and write a song accidentally. I’d be playing around on her metallophone absentmindedly before heading to the beach together and realize the next day she’d been recording me the whole time without my knowledge, surveillance-style. She’d be like, “look at this insane thing I made out of what you played.” And then boom: mega-hit. 

Nina: It’s so important to record your friends surveillance-style! I will never stop being like this, lol. I always want to get the first take and the one with our life in it. A lot of the album is that kind of stuff. There's a song on the record called “No more to see” that begins with Rachika playing piano. I set up three mics real quick and pointed one of them completely out the window. The first minute of that song is just that mic solo’d and feels like you’re really hearing that house’s spirit.

Sort of related: Are there any instruments or sounds or effects that you feel like partly define this body of work?

Rachika: For me, it’s Nina’s tape-ified cello playing against my guitar on moments like the “Blue Rags” climax or “[as is most (bimbo it out)].” Our collabs in 2021 began with this very simple format of us two improvising on those as our respective instruments … We’ve both agreed that era of our collab was very Jon Brion-core. Those sketches ended up transforming into a million other things, and that sound took a backseat on the album ultimately—but it feels like the origin of the journey to me. 

Nina: Yeah totally there's a lot of precious early sketches from when I would bring my little electric cello to Brooklyn or borrow Mizu’s and run everything through a cassette deck. There was something so immediate about playing those two instruments together. Things just kept getting increasingly out of hand as we made more songs. I feel like sometimes we’d make a sketch and come to this mutual understanding that we had to make it into something bigger and maximalist. I feel like we’re both cursed with that trait. Sometimes songs just magically come together so quick but a lot of the time you just get this download of what a song needs to sound and feel like and it ends up taking months to get there and you have to learn new ways of doing things that you don’t know how to.

We love your collaboration with Willy Siegel, Katie Dey, and Julianna Barwick. A real all-star cast! How did that track come together? 

Rachika: We had written this massive instrumental (“It’s Change”) that had two distinct sections, but we felt like it was still asking for melody in both parts. So Nina recorded our friend Willy Siegel singing on the first half, and I reached out to Katie Dey about the latter. Somewhere in the middle of that we had also asked Julianna Barwick to sing on the song, but her 17 tracks of vocals were so incredible that they inspired us to write an entirely new song the same day, which became “Give-upping.” Then months later, some of those vocals cycled back onto “It’s Change.” It was a long circuitous journey that kept ending up in unexpected places every moment we thought we had a finished song. It’s probably over 200 tracks of audio.

Nina: We both had been massive fangirls of the three of them forever. I met Willy in the backyard of a party the first week I moved here and we had hung out several times before I realised they were a voice I’d been listening to for like a decade (Ponytail). This song still feels unreal to me. It was the first thing that happened when I plugged my bass into Rachika's guitar pedals for the first time. I made this little loop that we both added a million things to. I just remember this giant chaotic Ableton session with two kind of disparate parts. So many layers of us hitting the piano with our hands to make all the percussion. Rachika assembled them together with this insane transition that magically tied it all together.

What is your relationship with spirituality as it relates to the process of writing and recording music?

Rachika: Spirituality is how I make sense of what it means to be human and art is also how I make sense of what it means to be human. So they just are two faces of the same thing for me, I guess.

Nina: Music has always been a lifeline to spirituality and alignment when all else is failing. It’s the one practice that is always accessible to me. It's always felt like a place that's outside of my life that I can go to and find a different world when I need it. I think I take it for granted sometimes. Like when you have a friend that only calls you when they’re going through it and otherwise is unavailable to you, that’s how I treat music sometimes. I’ve been trying to be a better friend to it though.

If you two could soundtrack a movie, what kind of movie would it be? 

Rachika: Eternal Sunshine 2: Clementine’s Revenge.

Nina: Exactly. Someone get Michel on the horn.

What is the GOAT 2000s indietronica record?

Rachika: Múm Yesterday Was Dramatic - Today Is OK defined a lot of my high school experience for me

Nina: The Lemon Of Pink by The Books was pretty pivotal for me. All of their albums are perfect.

What is the GOAT studio beverage? 

Rachika: Goat milk I guess?

Nina: Green juice from the donut place.

Photo Credit: Allegra Messina