Acclaimed singer and transdisciplinarian ganavya shares two new songs, ‘Would Be Better‘ and ‘Willow Street,‘ recorded at LEITER’s Funkhaus Studio and released on all digital platforms on December 12, 2025.

The double single traces a tender dialogue between distance and belonging — songs born from loneliness and homesickness that find their way home through a chosen siblinghood with singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Sam Amidon. Known for his reimaginings of traditional folk music, Amidon brings his unmistakable blend of intimacy and experimental openness to the songs, meeting ganavya’s devotional depth in a shared language of care.

Both artists, drawn to the sacredness of collaboration, are joined by saxophonist and producer Sam Gendel on ‘Willow Street‘, whose distinct sound has become a hallmark of the Los Angeles ambient jazz scene. Together, they fold vast worlds into one small neighborhood, where the walk to a loved one’s door takes only a few minutes — no longer than the length of a song.

“You are sweetheart older brother,” I had written to Sam early last year, after he quietly and lovingly held me as I cried over the phone about not being able to be there for my parents. The first occurrence of the word “freedom” is, perhaps, the Ancient Sumerian word “amaragi,” which means “return to Mother.” Freedom, what takes us away from family / what returns us back home.

Maybe we can make a song, Sam suggested after I cried. Just ten minutes after hanging up, I sent him a long poem. Less than twenty minutes later, the poem had a guitar part. Sam honed into two lines, simplified it and in less than thirty minutes, unbelievably yet truly entirely over a text-message thread, the song ‚Would Be Better‘ was fully born.

But I had no idea when I would see Sam next, so we let the song be. Text messages might be the letters of our time — and if I didn’t have them to look back on, I would have forgotten the next part of the story.

A week after we had written this song together on text, when my last sigh was a simple update on where I was — “Bourges to Paris” — “Well, shit. / I’m coming to London. / How did that happen?” Sam responded: “Well, shit! That’s wondrous news.” “I’m singing for something called Later…with Jools Holland,” I’d written. Sam, sweetheart older brother, immediately sent me some of his favorite Jools moments, starting with Mary Margaret O’Hara. Brothers teach you things. I, severely homesick, did not want to stay at a hotel, and stayed at Alev Lenz’s home the weekend of Later…with Jools Holland instead. Sam came around and Alev helped us make a demo of our song. For a year, I held the demo close, an antidote to something unnameable.

This song was a cry to the Gods to fit the world “in six neat streets.” That I was in London, singing in a room with Sam within a week, is proof that someone, somewhere, is listening to our cries.

But the text message had a second guitar melody, and Sam and I always knew the two songs needed to be together, ‘Would Be Better‘ and the unnamed second song.

This past summer, on short notice, Sam flew to Berlin on a day off, and we recorded the two songs at Funkhaus in a few hours. We knew what to do with ‘Would Be Better‘, but the second half was a guided spill, a confession, that fit the contours of Sam’s guitar line: “Alone, alone / If I’d only known / I’m alone.” No, instead, I finally arrived to “If I’d only known / Home is every heart / I’ve ever loved / I’ve ever known.” Words fell out in real time. When the time came to name the second song on the session, I shrugged and asked Sam what the street of his family home was: “Willow Street,” he said.

“Everyone’s home, we are complete / would be better.” We couldn’t have imagined. A month after recording ‘Would Be Better‘ and what would be called ‘Willow Street‘, I was on my regularly scheduled tour route — one that was to pass through Brattleboro, VT, where Sam was unexpectedly flying to as well. Sam’s beloved Father was about to die. Though I knew Sam’s family was nearby (they’ll make you pancakes! he promised), neither of us had expected to see the other in Vermont. It wasn’t planned.

A bit dazed with the surreality of it all, we took a picture beneath the very sign that read Willow Street. We —my husband Felix Grimm (whose friendship with Sam is older than even my own), Sam, and I — were quietly sitting on the porch of the Amidon family home on Willow Street. Later that evening, after I drank tea with Sam’s mom and heard stories of how Sam’s beloved father was pulling pranks and correcting Sam’s singing until the very end, I walked just ten minutes with Felix’s hand in mine, past the Willow Street sign, to the venue.

Sam showed up to the gig with his brother. Epsilon Spires, the venue, was once a church, I learnt: the very church that Sam’s father and family had spent many Sundays singing together in. The next day, I saw an old video of a young Sam, Sam’s Beth, Sam’s father and family all singing at the church, before it became the stage I’d have my show on.

I know some of this is hard to follow. It’s hard to fit it all in words. It’s easier to fit it into song. I think Sam understood this after I cried to him, gasping for air surrounded by tenderness and a feeling of failure, when he quietly responded with “maybe we can make a song.” I wonder if song was born when language couldn’t fit everything.

This is a song that was born from loneliness, such loneliness that even the one song became two, as if they needed to keep each other company. It’s a song that brought my brother to me, not once, but twice. It’s a song that brought me to London, and then later to Willow Street.

The best collaborations are excuses to spend time with people you want to learn from. Sam Amidon is my sweetheart older brother, and I’m grateful I get to learn from him.

“Write for the world you want to see,“ Wayne Shorter said to me once. So I did: I wanted the world to fit in six streets, and with the help of a brother, I wrote a song. And then suddenly, the world did.

I’m still on the road. I’m still traveling. But I am learning from people — brothers like Sam — how to come back home, how to fit everyone I’ve ever loved into my pocket, no matter where I go.

Sam Gendel, who figures into the story with Sam Amidon and my husband Felix, is a story for another time. Today, all you need to know is that Sam Gendel fits into our small six streets, too.

And if you want to, so do you. Always. Here is Mother.