Disiniblud
"It's Not About Healing and Moving Past the Darkness"
When Rachika Nayar and Nina Keith, aka Disiniblud, meet in Brooklyn in a park so small that you can't walk past each other without noticing, it can only be about the really big things in life. First and foremost, that's music for both of them.
In their universe, everything revolves around this and then everything else that makes their hearts beat faster. What was and what will no longer be. The post-lockdown love at a distance, Buddhism, Hinduism or the soundtrack that Rachika and Nina loved so much as teenagers. This deep connection, which soon felt like a long-forgotten childhood memory finally coming to the surface again, gave rise to the Disiniblud project, with an album of the same name that gets under your skin. It will be released on Smugglers Way on July 18th, 2025, and you can listen to the first pre-released songs now.
The eleven tracks on the album sound dreamy and enchanted. Driven by an all-encompassing and beautiful sense of togetherness, inspired by dying, finding oneself again, wounds, old scars that never completely disappear and memory. This is precisely what the artists wanted "Disniblud" to sound like: "Music that feels like an old scar that you run your fingers over" is what it was supposed to be.
"Standing together in the abyss"
Before Disniblud met four years ago in New York's Maria Hernandez Park, the two artists had admired each other online and exchanged compliments about their music. A common denominator was quickly identified, and it was clear from the outset that they would collaborate on recording pieces together in the future. Nina describes the album, which is now about to be released, as follows:
"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, like we're holding and protecting each other through that process and finding a way to take both the light and dark."
Rachika explains:
"It's not about healing and moving past the darkness."
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 metabolise it."
With "Disniblud", the now LA-based artists have opened a post-rock/ambient chapter that blurs the boundaries between genres. Influences ranging from electronica to neoclassical are clearly recognisable. The tracks intersect, each telling its own story, and together, they form a coherent whole. The cinematic atmosphere is particularly evident in tracks like "Give-upping" (feat. Julianna Barwick) and "Serpentine" (feat. Cassandra Croft).
Together with guest artists such as Katie Dey, Tujiko Noriko and Aspidistrafly, Rachika Nayar and Nina Keith explore their musical range and leave all boundaries far behind. The record is spontaneous, personal, and heartfelt and is hereby warmly recommended to be listened to again and again.
Disiniblud – "Disiniblud"
Listen to the first pre-released tracks "Give-upping" (feat. Julianna Barwick), "Blue Rags Wind (feat. Amigone), and "It's Change (feat. Willy Siegel, Katie Dey & Julianna Barwick) here:
