In her music, Brooklyn-based composer and producer Rachika Nayar oscillates between the extremities of emotion as a lot as she’s succesful exploring the huge, abstracted house that’s in between. Her debut album, Our Palms In opposition to the Nightfall, was a haunting meditation that showcased her means to make use of the guitar in ways in which could possibly be heat, playful, ghostly and enveloping, imagining past the expressive potential that’s usually assigned to the instrument. Even when she pulled again the curtain on its companion EP, fragments, the impact was revealing however nonetheless otherworldly, suggesting extra concerning the vary of influences permeating it quite than any concrete id. At this time, Nayar has launched her sophomore full-length, Heaven Come Crashing, which leaps all the way in which to the opposite finish of the spectrum, approaching one thing revelatory and transcendent by merging craving guitar, sweeping atmosphere, and dancefloor euphoria in a approach that’s virtually theatrical. Even at their most ecstatic, just like the Maria BC-featuring title observe, the songs bend and remodel with a visceral fluidity: no quantity of burning mild can exist with out darkness. The joys lies not within the explosion itself, essentially, however in sifting by way of the particles.
We caught up with Rachika Nayar for this version of our Artist Highlight interview sequence to speak concerning the function of fantasy and need in her music, collaborating with Maria BC, the long run path of her sound, and extra.
As a result of your music pulls from so many alternative sonic worlds, I’m curious how your relationship to music emerged and has developed through the years. If you had been first drawn to it, did you kind totally different sorts of attachments relying on the style, or did all of it have an analogous impact on you no matter any stylistic distinctions?
It’s onerous to synthesize as a result of it’s such a basic cloth of my life ever since I used to be a little bit child. However I do really feel like ever since I used to be like in center faculty or so, I began exploring a bunch of various genres on-line, as a result of there was by no means actually a lot of a bodily musical neighborhood within the place the place I grew up. So it was principally by way of URL explorations, particularly with certainly one of my greatest pals at the moment and my musical associate rising up, who’s nonetheless a superb pal of mine. We’d get into a brand new style each few months and torrent like 1,000,000 albums with no matter had been essentially the most foundational releases in that model. We listened to it collectively and tried to learn to make drum n’ bass break beats on Ableton, or we had a section of being into jazz fusion and Pat Metheny and stuff in center faculty after we had been first studying guitar and bass. I really feel like each style opens up a unique a part of my emotional terrain to discover. When you’ve got totally different language for it, you recontextualize your individual emotional relationship to self by way of it.
I used to be pondering of it in relation to the thought of melodrama, which you’ve mentioned across the new album and that’s perhaps related extra with sure genres. You’ve stated that you simply’re each attracted and hesitant round that type of expression, partly as a result of it entails “taking huge feelings at face worth.” What made you extra comfy, or compelled, to embrace these feelings going into Heaven Come Crashing?
I really feel like in some unspecified time in the future I developed some deep suspicion of my very own baseline wishes or emotions, particularly if that comes out within the realm of one thing like fantasy, which has at all times been a spot of refuge for me and rising up. I really feel like at a sure level, you come to reckon with the ways in which so most of the belongings you really feel aren’t aligned with the issues that you simply consider and the belongings you assume and must learn to negotiate that distance. And clearly, there’s so many political issues that come up inside need. I feel that the album, for me at the least, felt in tandem with studying to strategy and to see that a part of me as shadow self; one thing to have conversations with and one thing to study from, however not one thing to close down or dismiss inside me. It feels much less like one thing harmful or scary; it seems like one other self to dialogue with.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9mZCVzub9A
Talking of need and fantasy, how did you come throughout the Roland Barthes quote that you simply’ve included within the album’s Bandcamp description? Have been you already eager about these concepts, and the way did you relate it to your expertise and your music?
I’m unsure how I stumbled on that ebook initially, however it’s this actually stunning sequence of lectures by Barthes which might be only a sequence of discontinuous fragments that by no means quantity to a cohesive argument or entire. They’re all a bunch of recommendations that come off of various phrases and concepts. The final thematic thrust of the work is that he’s fantasizing a couple of kind of social being collectively or togetherness that marries the liberty of individuals’s solitary paths with these inherent types of management that include any type of group or collectivity, and likewise marries that with simply the which means and necessity of being with different individuals. It’s all fairly abstracted, however it got here to me at a sure level the place I used to be grappling with a number of my very own conflicts in relation to different individuals and collectivity.
That’s attention-grabbing, as a result of this concept of solitude and collectivity pertains to one thing I wished to convey up afterward, however I hadn’t thought of it within the context of this quote.
That’s how I prefer it to be every time I do give a little bit little bit of thematic suggestion together with the album; I by no means actually need anyone to learn it within the context of what it means for me or the place it got here from for me, and even actually the context of what it comes from within the textual content. Simply as some type of connotation to merge with their studying of the music and convey their very own which means to it. However I by no means actually need to put an excessive amount of interpretive construction round my music. I don’t need to ever connect it to my very own life story or personhood, actually. So, I’m curious what it means for you.
The factor I latched on to is this concept that fantasy is “at all times very transient, only a glimmer of the narrative of need.” I type of skilled the album as being this sweepingly euphoric expertise, however that made me surprise if these euphoric moments are solely a glimmer of what’s potential inside the realm of need.
Yeah, I like that loads.
I ponder if it seems like solely a glimpse for you too.
I imply, I assume that’s what music-making seems like for me, in a approach – it’s some type of decontextualized glimpse of an emotional kernel inside me. And folks see that actually brightly lit fragment and convey their very own entire world to that second of their listening. After which, within the encounter between these two little glimmers, one thing new is metabolized. For me, my very own relationship to different individuals’s music has modified how I relate to myself and different individuals and my fundamental concepts of what’s potential. There’s one thing stunning within the contracted transience of the factor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAvgRBs_DCg
Nonetheless, on this album greater than something you’ve launched earlier than, you’re actually magnifying that transient factor, exploding it. Was that one thing that conflicted with the construction that you simply attempt to implement in your compositional course of? This time round, was it more difficult to know when a chunk begins and when it ends, and to determine how all its components join?
This time round felt a little bit simpler, really, simply by way of technical facet of it. I really feel like a developed a sure set of strategies or instruments that I preferred to make use of on the primary album, and every of these songs was type of an enormous experiment or exploration after I was studying what was potential with how I can course of my guitar and what can come out of it. However with this album, I really feel like I had extra of a way of paths that I do know I can go down, after which I introduced new issues in there to flesh it out. However every time I’m writing a music, it at all times seems like a technique of discovery and type of fumbling round at the hours of darkness. But it surely got here collectively loads quicker than the final album; a lot of the songs I feel I completed in like 5 months.
What retains you grounded while you’re experimenting with or discovering new sounds?
You already know, I ponder that as nicely. [laughs] I’ve been feeling lately like each time I come to a music or come to songwriting, I’ve this sense of like, Wait… How do I make music? What’s it that I do to make music once more? So typically, so most of the songs are written with completely totally different means. However I assume the factor that’s at all times been grounding for me is my relationship to my instrument, with guitar, like a motor reminiscence place that I can get misplaced in after I’m simply taking part in round with loops and reverb and delay and pedals. After which utilizing that core place that I really feel grounded in as a leaping off level for the better a part of all my compositional course of. However lately, I’ve been desirous to ungroup that as a result of it’s beginning to get a little bit stale for me once more. Perhaps I’ll even simply cease utilizing guitar altogether.
Inform me a bit about your collaboration with Maria BC. I do know you’re pals, however what was it prefer to cross paths and work collectively on this approach?
We met final yr from having this actually deep mutual admiration for one another’s music and a extremely deep emotional connection to one another’s music. We linked on-line in some unspecified time in the future about it. I’d by no means actually used lyrical vocals in my music earlier than this level, in order that was type of an enormous transition for me. Like I used to be saying earlier, I like my music to be suggestive or connotative, I don’t actually prefer to really feel like I’m imparting a message or nailing it down into some type of actually clear, contained thematic world. And their lyricism simply had this actually gorgeously connotative, poetic sensibility to it, however it’s additionally very vivid and has this brightly lit side to it, like we had been saying after we’re speaking about fantasy. The title observe that I wrote for the album simply felt prefer it was craving for an enormous sharp flip in my artistic course of, as a result of it was additionally the primary time that I used heavy percussion or drum beat element. So I type of took a leap of religion into incorporating lyrical vocals with them.
We’ve talked loads about how we’ve got such an analogous relationship to the music that meant essentially the most to us rising up with a number of totally different specific albums that we had been listening to on the identical factors in our lives and a number of comparable melodic sensibilities, a number of shared floor in our relationship to solitude or quiet and the way it comes up in our musicality. I really feel like they are often extra of a cynic that faces actuality on this actually highly effective, barefaced, and brave approach, and my music can have a sure naive optimism to it or starry-eyed dreaming. I really feel like they type of come from the identical place, although.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFIdgMnOCi4
Listening to these vocal tracks and Maria BC’s voice made me query how a lot this euphoria or fantasy stems from solitude, and that perhaps a way of connectedness is definitely integral to it.
Yeah. I assume that music particularly has that burning need to interrupt away from oneself. I do hear that too.
For you, how a lot do the emotions of ecstasy that you simply’re diving into verge on the religious?
Yeah, I feel particularly ‘Heaven Come Crashing’ and ‘A Wretched Destiny’ actually attain towards this sure cathartic peak sense of overflow or boiling over. This sense of full explosive iteration is one thing that I’ve at all times been reaching at accessing musically, for a very long time. And I assume that sense of, not essentially erasure of self, however erasure of the bounds of your self is a basic a part of religious expertise to me. It’s type of what I really feel in like a rave setting or one thing, the strobe lights and the fog and every part is type of annihilated apart from this immersion in sound and shedding your self. And after I’m meditating or doing yoga observe, it’s about studying to erase your sense of being some type of bounded topic or an ego, and studying the way you’re caught up on this large internet of mutuality and interrelations. You’re probably not a separate object. I assume that sense of explosive emotionality generally connects on this circuitous method to spirituality for me.
This steady reaching is one thing I positively affiliate together with your music. I’m curious how a lot additional you’re feeling like you’ll be able to stretch this maximalist strategy that you simply’ve taken with this album. Now that it’s about to be launched, do you’re feeling an urge to type of retreat from that a little bit bit, to succeed in additional, or to strive one thing fully new?
I really feel prefer it’s positively the previous. I really feel like I’ve thought of that loads really, with the place I need to go musically, as a result of I do really feel like there’s a sure apex place that I’ve at all times been looking for that I really feel like I’ve come across in a approach that I really feel actually resonant with this album. And now I do need to reorient my path, and I feel the following album goes to be very minimalist, really, darkish and meditative and much more cyclical.The songs I’ve been engaged on for it are very totally different. I do really feel like I swing between poles loads, each in how I take into consideration the world and the way I create and categorical myself creatively.
This interview has been edited and condensed for readability and size.
Rachika Nayar’s Heaven Come Crashing is out now by way of NNA Tapes.
