cloud collecting #7: Rachika Nayar
exploring what calls to you, approaching things with intentionality + every step is a new discovery
cloud collecting includes 3-question interviews with women and gender-expansive artists discussing their creativity. I'm excited and honored to have guitarist and composer Rachika Nayar share a few insights into her process.
“Most of my music has been based on digitally processed guitar, layered with synths and other instruments. It sits somewhere between post-rock and ambient-electronic, but sometimes there's bits of things like trance, neo-classical, or even Midwest emo in there. I try to collect the many musical influences I love into some language that feels new to me. I released my first proper full-length Our Hands Against the Dusk in 2021, which defined this new sonic world I'd been developing; then Heaven Come Crashing in 2022, which moved toward something more maximalist and cataclysmic and desperate and romantic. There was also a side-project EP titled fragments I released in 2021 that featured the types of guitar loops I create before I deconstruct them for sound design. Whatever I'm creating, I mean to either shatter my own heart or put it back together, and hopefully it does the same for you—that's really all there is to it. This is my artist bio.”
-Rachika
1. Did you have a mentor in your early life who helped you develop an interest in the arts?
I had a guitar teacher, Jeff Gibble, who taught me so much. Songwriting, microphone recording methods, music theory… He encouraged me to explore whatever was calling to me, so it never made music feel regimented like some educational routines can. I'm very grateful for having had the privilege of his support as a resource growing up, he gave me tools I've used forever after.
2. You recently moved to Los Angeles. How has your new environment impacted your songwriting?
I think I just feel way less claustrophobic in various ways. It makes a world of difference for me just being able to leave the music for a bit and go for a hike on a mountain 10 minutes away. My mind can wander alongside my body for a bit…
And then in even more straightforward terms, a label has been letting me use their studio, which has felt really freeing. Previously, I've always written music at home. I feel held at home with all my very particular pink, blue, and floral decor lol, and by all my items + totems + momentos… I found it hard to imagine feeling self-connected enough anywhere else to go deep emotionally and write. But lately, "home" has felt kinda deactivating for some reason… Going somewhere else has let me approach things with more intentionality, not be in my "default" state. And I feel less cooped up.
3. How do you cloud collect (connect to childlike wonder) in your creativity?
"Wonder" is such an important word for me creatively! When I'm really in the flow of a song that feels so indescribably "right," it's like entering some inner-child place of playfulness and exploration. Every step is a new discovery. Something stuck or painful inside me is hopefully unlocking, and instead I'm looking at a new universe. It's almost like being an infant again, the way that it precedes logic and words. It's glittery, non-verbal, and full of possibility.