Rachika Nayar

In just two short years, Rachika Nayar’s compositions of digitally processed guitar have reimagined the limits of both the instrument and of electronic music. Her 2021 full-length debut, Our Hands Against the Dusk, mutated her six-strings beyond recognition into lush, ghostly landscapes, while a companion EP “fragments” revealed the modest guitar loops that made up the raw material for the former’s contorted sound design.

Her massive second LP, Heaven Come Crashing, released in 2022, takes a dramatic left-turn, trading her previous ambient sensibilities for vivid electronic maximalism. Retaining her mangled guitar stylings, she explores a sonic world of blistering passion through M1 piano stabs, supersaws, Amen breaks, and colossal synth harmonies a la “Dead Cities”-era M83.

For this constant sense of reinvention, her releases have drawn acclaim from publications including The New York Times, Fader, Vulture, NPR, and Pitchfork, the latter of which named her sophomore LP “Best New Music.”