Rachika Nayar and Nina Keith Present: Disiniblud

Rachika Nayar and Nina Keith Present Disiniblud with Sally Decker Thursday, October 23, 2025 View our FAQ page for more info, or contact us at [email protected] with any accommodation requests. Nina Keith and Rachika Nayar 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 collaborative project Disiniblud and their fairytale-like self-titled LP 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. The two LA-based artists 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 (at the climax of the track Serpentine featuring Cassandra Croft, for instance). 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. Though these two have such a strong intuitive connection, making music together was often unintentional. The first time Rachika visited Nina in LA before her own move, she handed Nina her suitcases and immediately sat down at Nina's new piano. Nina quickly set up microphones to record the moment of spontaneity without disturbing her, thus producing the song Nice rocks in my mouth (unreleased), which they worked on for two days straight without so much as a concrete plan. Serpentine is another result of loose improvisation: Rachika absentmindedly playing guitar on Nina's bed while water dripping from Nina’s sound installation Periphone audibly struck metallophone bars in the background. Out of a 72-minute long recording, they found a thirty second excerpt to loop behind Cassandra’s soaring soprano vocals. This fluency and fluidity also intertwines with the way they'll experiment with new instruments and techniques under their mutual guidance and support. Nina refers to it as 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. I think we encourage each othe