Rachika Nayar crafts guitar-driven works shaped by the introspective leanings of Midwest emo, the buoyant pulses of trance anthems, and expansive film scores. The Brooklyn artist’s first full-length, Our Hands Against the Dusk from 2021, offers glitch-laden electro-acoustic reconstructions, while Heaven Come Crashing, issued the following year, presents sweeping, large-scale tracks that incorporate dream pop, jungle, and anime soundtracks.
Recording initially as Rachika S, she put out Themes for a Film in 2018, created for a new score to the cult anime Tekkon Kinkreet. She also composed the music for and performed in the 2019 feature So Pretty, which centers on four queer and transgender youth attempting to sustain a pro-utopian community in New York City. NNA Tapes released her debut album under the Rachika Nayar name, Our Hands Against the Dusk, in March 2021; on it she applied digital processing to her guitar until its bright, shimmering surfaces scarcely evoked the originating instrument. A comparatively unrefined companion EP, fragments, followed on RVNG Intl.’s Commend sublabel. Her second full-length for NNA Tapes, Heaven Come Crashing, arrived in 2022 and pursues a far more panoramic sound rooted in dance music at its most euphoric and atmospheric.
