Audiopile Review: Nostalgia is a potent tool that can easily lead an artist into overly familiar terrain. That being said, on their first release under the Disiniblud banner, experimental artist Rachika Nayar and multi-instrumentalist Nina Keith wield it differently: not as a stylistic crutch, but as an emotional compass, channeling a vivid, childlike sense of wonder through imaginative means. The world they build feels both new and deeply familiar, like revisiting a beloved storybook or worn VHS tape. The NeverEnding Story-esque cover art offers a fitting window into the album’s sweeping sense of discovery as Nayar and Keith conjure this dreamlike landscape with a richly layered palette—glitchy, inscrutable vocals, alien textures, warm synths, piano, strings, delicate electro-acoustic touches, and, of course, Nayar’s stirring guitar. It’s cinematic and gentle, yet always in motion—propelled by the emotional post-rock architecture Nayar honed on 2022’s Heaven Come Crashing. Echoes of Múm’s Finally We Are No One, 00’s-era Four Tet, Björk’s detailed art-pop, and Dead Cities-era M83 ripple throughout, while guest appearances from Julianna Barwick, Aspidistrafly, Tujiko Noriko, and more deepen the sense of shared magic. Together, Nayar and Keith don’t just build a fantasy; they make it feel as vivid as the stories we grew up on.

***

Disiniblud, the thrilling new collaborative album project from the composers/producers/multi-instrumentalists Rachika Nayar and Nina Keith.

Rachika and Nina meet on complementary but seemingly disparate musical grounds. On her 2022 breakout LP Heaven Come Crashing, Rachika pushed her ambient guitar roots into passionate new terrain—where maximalist synths, sub-bass, and Amen breaks surged with cataclysmic longing and aching vulnerability. 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. Nina, 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.

On Disiniblud, the two’s self-described “wordless conversation” 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. 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, neo-classical, and pop genres in this co-created realm.

Disiniblud features guest appearances from Julianna Barwick, Tujiko Noriko, Cassandra Croft, ASPIDISTRAFLY, Katie Dey, June McDoom and Ponytail’s Willy Siegel.